Betting on Google’s Tech Stack for My Project Management App
Back in 2016, when I started working on my project management application, Self-Manager.net, I had to make a big decision: which tech stack would power the entire platform?
At that time, the landscape of web development was already crowded with frameworks, libraries, and backend options. But my bet was clear—I decided to go all in on Google technologies.
Here’s what I chose:
Angular - for building a scalable, maintainable, and future-proof front-end.
Firebase on Google Cloud – for authentication, real-time database, hosting, and serverless backend infrastructure.
Google Chrome – not just as a browser, but as a powerful debugging and development environment.
Looking Back from 2025
Fast forward almost a decade, and I can say with confidence: this was one of the best technical decisions I’ve ever made.
Angular has matured into a robust framework that makes large-scale application development far more maintainable. Its structure, tooling, and updates have kept the Self-Manager codebase clean and organized.
Firebase and Google Cloud allowed me to focus on features instead of server maintenance. With built-in authentication, real-time database sync, hosting, and serverless functions, it cut down development time drastically.
Chrome DevTools became an everyday companion, saving hours of debugging time.
The result?
👉 The app today runs on about 70,000 lines of original code.
Had I built the same features with a more traditional backend and less integrated ecosystem, the codebase might have easily been 5x–10x larger.
That means faster iteration, lower costs, and more energy to focus on innovation.
Why This Matters
When people ask me why I chose Angular and Firebase instead of chasing the “framework of the year,” my answer is simple:
🔹 Stability beats hype.
🔹 Integration saves time.
🔹 A strong ecosystem compounds over years.
Google’s continuous investment into Angular, Firebase, and Chrome has proven that betting on the right ecosystem early can shape the long-term success of a product.
Closing Thoughts
Looking back at this journey, I’m glad I trusted the Google ecosystem back in 2016. Without those technologies, developing Self-Manager would have been far more complicated, expensive, and time-consuming.
As of 2025, I’m still building, scaling, and improving the app—and those same choices continue to pay off every day.
https://self-manager.net/articles/built-wit-a-solid-technical-foundation