I spent years chasing the shiny new thing. In 2026, I am betting on the most controversial architecture of all: Simplicity.
I used to be a Resume Driven Developer.
You know the type. If a project didn't involve Kubernetes, three different cloud providers, a message queue, and a framework that was released last Tuesday, I wasn't interested.
I wasn't building software; I was building a monument to my own ego.
And the result? My cloud bill was higher than my grocery bill, and I needed a map just to find where my user's password was stored.
It is now 2026. The hype cycle is exhausting.
AI tools generate code faster than we can debug it. Complexity is drowning us.
So, for this year, I am making a radical change. I am betting on the "Boring Stack".
Here is why I am firing complexity, and why you probably should too.
You Are Not Google (And Neither Am I)
We fell for a lie. We looked at Netflix and Uber and thought: "They use Microservices, so I should too for my To-Do app."
But we forgot that they have 2,000 engineers. I have me, a coffee mug, and a deadline.
When you split your application into 10 tiny services, you don't remove complexity. You just move it from your code to your network. And debugging a network error at 2 AM is not my idea of a good time.
This year, I am returning to the Majestic Monolith. One repo. One deploy. One database. If I want to find a bug, I don't need distributed tracing—I just need Ctrl+F.
The Stack I'm Actually Using
While everyone else is arguing about the latest meta-framework, here is what I am shipping production code with:
The Compute: A single VPS. No serverless cold starts. No hidden costs. Just a Linux box that runs forever.
The Database:
SQLite or Postgres. No fancy NoSQL document stores that require me to join data in the application layer. Relational data is beautiful. Let SQL do the work.
The Backend:
A standard REST API. GraphQL is cool, but asking for specific fields isn't my bottleneck. Complexity is.
The Frontend:
React (because I know it) without 50 extra libraries.
Is it scalable?
Stack Overflow runs on a monolith. Shopify runs on a monolith. Unless you are planning to onboard the entire population of Brazil tomorrow, a boring monolith is fine.
Boring Software Makes Money
The biggest realization I had as a Senior Engineer is that users do not care about your tech stack.
They don't care if you are using Rust or Python. They don't care if your architecture is "event-driven." They care if the button works when they click it.
When you choose boring technology, you spend less time configuring Webpack and more time building features. Features get customers. Customers pay bills.
The Joy of "Finished"
There is a specific peace of mind that comes with using tools that are older than the interns on your team.
When I use SQLite, I know it works. It has been tested on billions of devices. It doesn't break because of an npm update. It just sits there, reliably saving my data, asking for nothing in return.
So, in 2026, keep your Kubernetes clusters and your edge-computing-serverless-functions.
I will be over here with my single server and my SQLite file, shipping products while you are still configuring your YAML files.
What is the one "boring" tool you refuse to give up? Let me know in the comments.
Top comments (1)
totally agree. My stack is also very similar to what you mentioned above. As an addition, Python (only when i truly need it) and Next.js (for RSC requiring things. To be frank, i also studied react-router as a framework and checked tanstack but to keep things "boring" I am stuck to next, though sometimes i find it complex)
from a different perspective i apply the same boring approach to the tools (specifically editors) i use.
You see, during my development career, i switched between VS Code and neovim/vim occasionally. I always loved working on terminal and loved the philosophy of vim/neovim but there were / are so much to learn and learning how to configure neovim/vim always gave me hard time, nevertheless always tried to return to it (neovim) too..
Now, totally stopped trying returning to neovim as my primary dev ide/editor. yes i occasionally use for some small note-taking things but that is it. I configured my vs code much faster than i would do in neovim and now i can say that i work clutter-free (similar to neovim) taking adv of some extensions including vim key bindings and some special other keybindings and settings. So I like vs code, as i like neovim, but my ide/editor is vs code.
Tool switching might be a clutter for some too, it was a loss of focus for me, until i realized it and made it stop.
Time is the most precious thing we have (next to health) and we cannot have it forever.