I am comfortable in using the MERN stack, and i want to make some money out of it like freelancing and stuff. Is mern good for that use case? Or do i have to learn something like django / .net core? Because people here always say that mern sucks and its very slow.. pls help!!

You could use PHP if you wanted and it would be fine.

I would not choose to do that, but this is personal opinion.

I'd worry more about clean code, things like scalability, and design / architecture skills before I worry about the stack. Especially if working alone with 100% accountability.

@craig939393 Got it. But what about the speed? is that not gonna be an issue if I am working for someone else? And I can't learn PHP, my only options are Node/Java/.Net/Django as backend.

But I don't know any besides Nodejs as of now.

@Cystal I don't recommend PHP, just making a point that it is not the most important aspect.

Speed depends on what you are making. In my experience it is rare for speed to be an issue unless you're on a complex problem. 95% of problems are not that complex on my experience.

Node is single threaded with an event loop. That single threaded nature in my opinion makes it easier to develop, albeit with less control over concurrent solutions. Again I don't see being a big deal for 99% of cases.

My advice is do what you want. Any language you mentioned is fine, they're just tools. If you want to use a different tool go for it, otherwise node is fine.

I don't believe you can know what tools you like until you are strong in both and understand pros and cons. Then it's up to preference.

why is php not something you can learn? no jobs available for it in your area?

@AleCx04 No its not that, and i am not searching for jobs right now, its just that I am not comfortable with PHP, in other words I just don't like it TBH.

@craig939393 Thanks, then i think i'll be working with the mern stack. :)

@Cystal I can think of 1 case where PHP might get you a client where Node might not: if your customer segment uses shared hosts and want a solution that is compatible with PHP/Apache and a static deploy. It's common at the lower-end of the market

@webketje in my opinion customers don't care how it works as long as it does.

My view: the demand for React is in extremely high. I find that demand for Node and MongoDB are surprisingly low by comparison, relative to how popular they are among devs.

I used to be a C# developer but the past few years I've switched to Node. And I do a lot of frontend to, mostly plain JS now but I've been into Angular, only dabbled into React.

The job offers I get are like 50% C# (even though I haven't worked with it for years. It's one of the languages like Java that has a hold of the corporate market), 30% React (even though I've not even listed it as something I've used), 20% Fullstack where maybe Node, maybe not.

PS: be aware though these are just our own narrow world views, this might differ vastly from city to city.

@Cystal I can understand that, I myself don't like some platforms and would not consider working on them. But was legitimately wondering why PHP was not an option. Shit is my bread and butter and I for one love everything about PHP

@craig939393 in my experience, that is not how it works. It depends on ease of use/ update, budget, developer market, and technical affinity of the customer. Actually I am working on a (side) job currently that requires shared host compat.

@webketje but is that from the point of view of a beginner trying to freelance and probably do every day websites, or an experienced developer aiming to do work for a company with an existing technical department and knowledge?

@craig939393 I am at the latter since 2015 , but I don't shun the former.