Choosing Specialist Developers vs Full-stack Developers: Weighing the Two Options

For building your website or web app, when you hire web developers, you have two broad options. Either you can opt for specialist development teams for the frontend and backend or you can just hire a team of full stack developers who can take care of building both frontend and backend. There are pros and cons on both sides that we will explore in this post. But first of all, we will begin by introducing both development skills and corresponding technologies. Let’s start.

What is Frontend Development?

Frontend development is all about building the client-side user interface or everything that the web users directly interact with. Frontend developers by using some frameworks and tools shape the interactive features, functionalities, and the look and feel of the website that directly concerns user interactions. Frontend development to a great extent determines the user experience and interactive attributes of a website.

Popular frontend technologies in the market include Angular, React, Vue, Flutter and several others. Specialist frontend developers by using any of these Frontend development frameworks build the user interface of the website. Since they are specialists, they have the expertise and skills to shape the frontend of the website as per desired requirements or expectations. On the other hand, for the server-side or backend of the project and the database they need to rely on the backend development team.

What is Backend Development?

Backend development is all about shaping the server-side configurations and database of the website that make server responses to user interactions possible. Without aligning a properly configured backend and database the user interactions with the frontend will not give any result from the server. Naturally, backend development has a higher stake in the performance and loading time of the website.

Popular backend technologies in the market include NodeJS, ExpressJS, PHP, Django, Python, Ruby on Rails and many others. Specialist backend developers by leveraging any of these technologies and database systems such as MySQL, MongoDB, PostgreSQL and others configure the servers for prompt response time and seamless performance. They are also responsible for integrating third-party APIs for enriching the website with custom features. They also need to depend on their frontend counterparts to shape the entire web project.

What is Full-Stack Development?

Full-stack development brings a shift to the approach of hiring specialist frontend and backend developers for a web development project. Full stack development is about building the entire website by developer resources skilled in building both frontend and backend. When you hire full-stack developers instead of separate specialist teams of frontend and backend experts, you can save the cost on resources and allow a small neat team to finish the entire project with a consistent and mutually shared vision.

Full-stack development technologies are the well-known stacks comprising frontend, backend, database and middleware frameworks and tools. Some of the popular stacks in this category include MEAN (MongoDB for database, ExpressJS for middleware, Angular for frontend and NodeJS for backend), MERN (MongoDB for database, ExpressJS for middleware, ReactJS for frontend and NodeJS for backend), LAMP (Linux for operating system, Apache web server, MySQL database and PHP as server-side scripting language) and several others.

Full-stack developers are often referred to as master of multiple skills as they can build a website from scratch by taking care of all the required components belonging to frontend, backend, middleware and database systems. The biggest advantage of hiring full-stack developers is the competitive cost advantage as you need to hire just a small team of full-stack developers for the entire project. There are also some demerits such as lack of in-depth expertise with frontend and backend that specialist developers are known for.

Pros and Cons of Hiring Specialist Frontend and Backend Development Teams

As we have briefly explained, there are both pros and cons for hiring specialist developers. Let’s segregate these pros and cons down below for more clarity.

Pros

• Specialist frontend and backend developers have in-depth knowledge and skills corresponding to their respective fields.
• Specialist developers are more exposed to challenges of their respective fields and corresponding solutions.
• For large, ambitious, intricate and feature-rich web projects, specialists always do a better job.
• Specialist developers ensure higher level of productivity and faster turnaround time.
• For a time-constrained web project, specialists ensure faster completion and time to market.

Cons

• Hiring specialist development teams involve bigger cost on resources.
• Specialists with vision restricted to either frontend or backend, do not have the larger vision for the entire web project.
• Project management and collaboration between two or more specialist teams often become a critical challenge.
• Specialists are not accountable for the failure of the entire web project, but only to their respective output.

Pros & Cons of Hiring Full-Stack Developers

Irrespective of all the buzz around the positive implications of hiring full-stack developers, their demerits are also noteworthy. Here we are going to point out both sides.

Pros

• Full-stack developers by taking care of all aspects of a web project help reduce the development team size resulting in cost benefits.
• Full stack developers building a website from scratch by taking care of both frontend and backend, can leverage a consistent vision for the entire website.
• Full-stack development team consisting of a few developers is easy to manage.
• Full-stack developers remain accountable for the entire web project.
• Small budget app projects with a limited feature set can find the full-stack approach more beneficial.

Cons

• Full-stack developers often end up being “Jack of all trades and master of none”. The lack of specialization may result in under-equipped frontend and backend.
• Full-stack developers by handling too many things at once may lose control of the project extending the project timeline.
• Full-stack development approach is often found unequipped to handle the complexities of a large and ambitious web project.

Ending Notes

So, what’s the final take-away from all that we have discussed so far? Well, obviously there is not a single straightforward answer to this. Hiring specialist developers or full-stack developers entirely depends upon the project size, complexities, budget and timeline. From a high level perspective, hiring specialists is always an imperative when you have a large and multilayered web project, but for small and budget-constrained web projects hiring a small team of full stack developers can be more practical.

Written by Ketan Barad

Ketan Barad is the Co-founder & CTO of EncodeDots, overseeing operations with a strategic mindset and a passion for innovation. With extensive experience in technology and business management, he plays a crucial role in optimizing processes, driving growth, and ensuring the delivery of high-quality solutions. His leadership fosters a culture of excellence, enabling EncodeDots to stay ahead in the ever-evolving digital landscape and deliver exceptional value to clients worldwide.