10 Best Tips for Building Fast and Scalable Web Applications

First Things First – What Is a Scalable Web Application? 

Let’s start with the basics and explain what a scalable web app is. How is a web app different from a website? When it comes to building scalable web applications, are there various types of scalabilities out there?

What Is the Difference Between a Website and a Scalable Web Application?

Simply speaking, a website is a bunch of related web pages that contain text, images, video, audio, etc. It can include one page, two pages, or many web pages hosted on a web server. To view it, you need a browser such as Google Chrome, Safari, Firefox, etc. A web application is a piece of software that can be accessed by the browser. A web application uses a combination of server-side scripts and client-side scripts to present information.

The main difference between a website and a web app is that the first one is more informative, and a web app is more interactive.

Types of Scalabilities – Horizontal Scaling & Vertical Scaling

A web app’s scalability is its ability to withstand huge loads due to the increased number of users. In other words, it’s an app’s elasticity to handle a growing number of users and load without compromising performance. Usually, when we discuss web applications, we focus on two types of scalabilities: vertical and horizontal scaling:

• Horizontal scaling. It refers to adding additional machines (or nodes) to your infrastructure to handle new demands in your web app.
• Vertical scaling. It refers to adding more power to your current machines (by increasing RAM or CPU usage) to meet demand.

Why Should You Consider Implementing Scalable Websites for Your Web Project?

Building scalable web applications and websites is important for your business to grow. Scalability shows if your web application is resilient to change. It means that your scalable web app will not crash during a seasonal traffic leap and won’t fail a sales campaign.

What Is the Importance of Scalable Web applications and websites?

If you foresee your website’s growth, it is essential to prevent potential issues. A scalable website (or scalable web application) means:

• Better, smooth performance – ensure your web application is fully operational.
• Increased loading speed – rendering time is shorter, which increases customer satisfaction.
• Global access – you can serve customers globally thanks to reliable server network solutions.
• Cost efficiency – a scalable website is easier to manage and maintain.

Ideas for Web Apps: Exploring Product Design and Planning Methods

Meeting customers’ needs and expectations isn’t as easy as it may seem. Therefore, before you start investing in your web application, thorough research and preparation are required. It’s called the product design process. It aims at finding the balance between user needs and business value. The ideal product design with an extensive product discovery phase helps you to understand customers’ needs, identify market opportunities, increase competitiveness, and generate profit in the long run.

Discovering Scalable Web Application Best Practices

Let’s move to real-life examples of how we approach scalable web applications at Axabee. They include guidelines on scalable app architecture, scalability metrics, and web app development.

1.     Make the Right Choice for Your Technology Stack
When you choose the right technologies to build scalable web applications, you don’t lock yourself in a box of things and technologies you already know and think are adequate for every problem that may occur. As Abraham Maslov said, It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail.

2.     Optimize Front-End Performance to Make Application Scalable
While building scalable web applications, it is useful to write down diagrams of your system. Knowing how each part of your web app will communicate is crucial. It helps you identify the spot where you should put the most effort to keep everything running smoothly.

3.     Integrate Caching Mechanisms to Boost Website Speed
You should use the cache whenever possible. Reducing the usage of databases will keep your web application running smoothly. Also, keep in mind to have multiple layers of cache.

4.     Unlock the Potential through Database Scaling and Data Consistency
Consistency in data should be maintained across all services. Don’t be afraid to use multiple databases. Also, don’t be afraid to use the same database for multiple microservices. You just need to remember that every microservice must be able to work independently.

5.     Utilize Asynchronous Processing for Scalable Web Applications
Don’t lock your app in waiting for long-time queries. Use asynchronous calls wherever possible. Remember that every environment has been trying to handle asynchronous logic as fast as possible.

6.     Opt for a Stateless Application Infrastructure
Always keep your web app stateless unless you have very good reasons not to. Maintaining state across multiple instances of your services is hard, but it can prevent the system from horizontal scaling.

7.     Streamline Database Queues & Web App Queues
Identify operations that can be done at the side. Use queries for things like sending emails or notifications. Using queues allows you to benefit from retrying actions that failed before. Keep that in mind for choosing operations you will handle on your queues.

8.     Maximize App Scalability with the Correct Infrastructure Options & Patterns
Keep your code as cloud-agnostic as possible. Don’t tie your code base closely with specific infrastructure providers. Try solutions such as DAPR that keep apps running without knowing what services are completing particular tasks.

9.     Implement Fail-Fast Policy to Improve & Trace System Malfunctions
Whenever your system has difficulty processing, your app should fail and restore quickly for other requests. This will help you drop the execution of things that are blocking resources for other operations.

10.  Choose the Right Tools for Web App’s Scalability Monitoring
Log, observe, and take action – your app will become almost a living thing as it will run and process user requests. Log as many things as possible, try to visualize your app performance, and take action whenever you see new problems rising.

Conclusion – How to Make Web Applications Scalable?

As you can see, there are many things to consider while building and designing scalable web applications. However, if you want your business to succeed and develop, it’s essential to invest in professional web development services that will help you build scalable web applications that meet growing market needs and decrease operational costs simultaneously.

Do you want to build a scalable web application with a custom software development company? Choose Axabee – we have solid experience with rapidly-growing projects, software development, and web scalability. Let’s build an amazing scalable web application together!