Hidden Elements of Backend Development

How things are built and work on the server side

According to Statista, there are about 6.5 billion smartphone mobile network subscriptions worldwide. That is not the number of people with smartphones, because one person can have several subscriptions. The GSMA's State of Mobile Internet Connectivity 2026 report puts the number of mobile internet users at 4.8 billion, or 59% of the world's population, at the end of 2025.

Every app those users open has a backend: the server code, database and APIs that users never see but that make the app work. It is often the most complex part of the software and takes much of the development time.

This article explains what backend development is, what it includes, what backend developers need to know, and how we built the backend for one of our projects.

What Is Backend Development?

The backend is the server side of a website or mobile app: the code and tools that implement its logic. Unlike the frontend, it is invisible to users.

A backend can look simple from the outside and still be hard to build. A project may combine different programming languages, architectures, databases and application programming interfaces (APIs), and the hard part is making them all work together.

Frontend vs Backend - What is the Difference?

The frontend is the interface users see and interact with: the UX and UI elements, such as buttons, text and animations. It is built with HTML (a markup language), CSS (a stylesheet language) and JavaScript (a programming language).

To see frontend code, right-click a page in Google Chrome and select Inspect. That code controls every visible element: fonts, images, component sizes, dropdown menus, buttons and so on.

Go Wombat is a full-stack development company and can build your product from scratch. Contact us.

What Backend Development Consists Of

Tools vary with each project's requirements, but every backend developer needs the following skills.

Programming Languages

A programming language is a backend developer's primary tool. Common backend languages include Java, PHP, Python, Ruby and C#. Some projects require a specific language, but general-purpose languages such as Python can be used for most kinds of backend, including web and mobile applications.

At Go Wombat, we focus on Python and use frameworks on top of it to develop faster.

Frameworks

A framework provides ready-made building blocks, so developers write less boilerplate code and deliver faster. Each backend language has its own frameworks: .NET for C#, Laravel for PHP, Ruby on Rails for Ruby, and Django or FastAPI for Python.

At Go Wombat, we use both Django and FastAPI. FastAPI also supports asynchronous programming, which is useful for running independent processes. Frontend developers use frameworks and libraries such as React, Angular and Vue; we mostly use React.

Databases

A database is an organised collection of structured data, usually stored electronically and managed by a database management system (DBMS). The data, the DBMS and the applications that use them together form a database system, often just called a database.

There are many types of databases (relational, NoSQL, hierarchical, document-oriented and others), but relational (SQL) and NoSQL databases are the most common. At Go Wombat, we use relational databases such as MySQL and PostgreSQL. PostgreSQL is a free, general-purpose database.

Architecture

Software architecture describes a system's components, their properties and how they connect. For a web application, the usual choice is between two architectures: monolithic and microservices.

In a monolithic architecture, all of the application's functionality lives in one codebase, and its parts cannot run independently. Changes are simpler to make, but a change in one place can break something elsewhere.

A microservices application is split into small services that run independently, so a change in one service does not affect the others. The cost is the extra work of keeping all the services in sync.

Web Server

A web server is software that receives HTTP requests, processes them and returns HTTP responses. In effect, it controls users' access to the files and applications on the server.

Common web servers include Apache, NGINX, Lighttpd and Microsoft IIS. According to W3Techs (September 2026), the most widely used are Cloudflare Server (31.1% of websites), NGINX (30.8%) and Apache (21.9%). Apache is open-source, stable and easy to configure, which makes it beginner-friendly. NGINX is fast, especially at serving static files, and can handle many requests within one thread.

Version Control System

A version control system records changes to a file or set of files over time and lets you revert to earlier versions. Git is the most popular. It is a distributed system: like Mercurial and other distributed version control systems, it gives every developer a full copy of the repository and its history, whereas centralised systems such as SVN keep the history in one place.

Understanding APIs

An application programming interface (API) is a set of functions and tools that lets two applications communicate. An API can connect the backend and frontend. Teams build their own APIs for internal use or use third-party APIs from popular services such as Google Maps, Facebook or PayPal. Backend developers need to know how to build and use them.

Formats Of Data Transfer

Backend developers should know REST (Representational State Transfer), a client-server architectural style built on HTTP. REST is the architectural style; a RESTful API is a web service that implements it. A REST API can exchange data in different formats, such as JSON, XML or CSV.

Containerisation

Containerisation platforms let developers build, deploy and run applications in isolated environments. Docker is a popular containerisation platform that makes deployment faster and more consistent.

At Go Wombat, our backend developers often use AWS for storage, managed relational databases, serverless computing, containerisation and other services. We have an AWS-certified backend developer on the team.

Mobile Backend Development

The backend for a mobile app is built the same way as for a web app, with languages such as Python and their frameworks.

At Go Wombat, we use Python for the backend and React Native for the frontend, which lets us build one cross-platform app for both iOS and Android. Native apps are written in platform languages instead: Kotlin or Java for Android and Swift for iOS.

Create cross-platform mobile apps or web applications with Go Wombat — contact us!

Backend Issues of a Live Project

At the time of writing, our web development team was configuring all the backend processes for a live project.

About The Product

The platform lets companies run design contests. A company announces a competition, designers submit design elements to win a reward, and the company can pick any of the entrants' ideas.

The platform previously operated in one country under a different name, and Go Wombat was asked to build an international, English-language version.

Backend Challenges

The backend is complex, not least because any customer can launch a new competition at any time.

Designers work anonymously and do not see the other entrants. The customer shortlists a set number of finalists and then picks the winner.

Each stage has its own notifications and logic. The platform also uses newsletters, emails, online chat and flash messages, and it runs an automated selection if the client has not chosen within a set period.

Online chat took a lot of the integration work: users can send media files and see whether a message has been read.

Tech Stack

We built the backend in Python with the Django framework.

Database

The database is PostgreSQL. For background work we used Celery, a task queue for Python web applications that runs tasks asynchronously, outside the HTTP request-response cycle. We also used Redis (Remote Dictionary Server), an in-memory key-value data store that can persist data to disk and supports several data structures.

Protocol server

We used Daphne, an HTTP, HTTP/2 and WebSocket protocol server for ASGI and ASGI-HTTP, developed to power Django Channels.

Cloud Service

The project runs on AWS: EC2 for virtual servers, RDS for the managed relational database and S3 for file storage.

Result

We delivered a full-featured MVP, and at the time of writing the team was still developing the full-stack system and adapting the work to the client's requests.

The platform helps companies find design ideas quickly and helps designers find work.