What's The Difference Between Frontend and Backend Development?

Getting comfortable with some programming terminologies early in your journey to becoming a programmer can not be underestimated, as it completely shapes your decision greatly. When starting as a beginner, it is often not very clear when you hear buzzwords like frontend and backend development used almost everywhere, and you also begin to wonder what exactly each of them covers and how they do that.

I promise to give you a very clear difference between these two aspects of software development and what they do. Now, it doesn't matter if you are completely programming illiterate, it also doesn't matter which background you are from (sciences or any other area) we are going to keep things super simple here.

Essentially, what do this frontend and backend mean? Well, as the terms sound frontend, which means it has to deal with what users of your software can see and interact with. While the backend means that these parts of the software are hidden from the user of the software and that's where most logic takes place.

While these two types of programming are certainly distinct from one another, they’re also like two sides of the same coin. Every software's functionality depends on each side communicating and operating effectively with the other as a single unit. That being said, one would ask, is frontend development more important than backend development? Nope. They both play very crucial roles in software development.

So where exactly do we start? Let’s flip that coin and get these buzzwords cleared.

What Is Frontend Development?

The frontend of an app, software, or website is what users can see in front of the computer screen and interact with, for instance clicking a submit button on a web page. It can also be referred to as “client-side”, it includes everything the user experiences directly: from text and colors to buttons, images, and navigation menus.

Let's say you finally got to the stage of an experienced programmer, and you want to work as a freelancer or have a company hire you. All you have to do is to display all your amazing projects on a very beautiful website to showcase your portfolio to your clients or employer. Maybe, this website will include your picture and images of all the projects you have worked on.  All you need are frontend technologies to build your website.

What are the frontend development languages?

To get comfortable building some cool websites, desktop, and mobile apps, you are likely to come across some languages that will help you do the trick. Note that this post won't be trying to make you a professional in any of these markup languages. Let's talk about them next.

HTML

This is one of the acronyms you will never escape from as a frontend developer most especially if you are a web designer. HTML stands for Hypertext Markup Language. Also, note that this is not a programming language but a markup language. HTML is the fundamental coding markup language (also known as the skeleton of every webpage) that creates and organizes web content so it can be displayed by a browser. It is one of the simplest markup languages you can get started with without any stress. If you are interested in diving deeper, then check out this guide from W3School to learn more.

CSS

CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets. It is the language we use to style an HTML document. CSS describes how HTML elements should be displayed and defines the style of a website’s content, such as layout, colors, fonts, etc. If you'd like to dive deeper into CSS tutorials, check out the W3School to learn more.

XML

XML stands for Extensible Markup Language. This markup language is a set of codes, or tags, that describes the text in a digital document. XML is a software- and hardware-independent tool for storing and transporting data. It is mostly used in building user interfaces for native Android apps and it's also one of the formats for pulling out resources from a web service like APIs. It looks a lot similar to HTML, but they are not the same. If you want to learn more about XML, check out the resources here.

XAML

XAML stands for Extensible Application Markup Language. It’s a simple and declarative language based on XML. In XAML, it is very easy to create, initialize and set properties of an object with hierarchical relations. It can be used for other purposes as well, e.g., to declare workflow in Workflow Foundation. XAML can be used on different platforms such as WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation), Silverlight, Mobile Development, and Windows Store App. It can be used across different .Net frameworks and CLR (common language runtime) versions. If you'd like to dive deeper, feel free to check out this resource here.

JavaScript

Up till this moment, if you design your website using the above-mentioned markup languages, everything would be static and to add some interactivity to it JavaScript must be involved. JavaScript is the programming language used to add interactive elements like drop-down menus, modal windows, and contact forms. If you like to dive deeper, this guide will be of great use.

HTML, CSS, and JavaScript together, are the essential languages you need when you want to focus on frontend development. Note that this list of languages will be very different in desktop app development and mobile app development. But the overall concept remains the same. So the frontend developers focus on the user interface and the interactivity between elements in an application.

In addition to the basic frontend technologies, it's like you will meet other good frameworks like Bootstrap, Django, and Angular, JavaScript libraries like jQuery, and CSS Preprocessors like SASS and LESS. This list is not exhaustive, there are other ones out there for different languages and potential functions.

What Is Backend Development?

For an app or website to be very useful we have to move our focus from a usual static website that we have been talking about to adding more amazing logic to every element the user interacts with. And this ranges from what happens when a user clicks a button to what happens when the result of every action has been displayed on the screen.

When explaining the difference between frontend and backend development, we should not forget that backend is everything that we cannot see right on the website or app. Backend development is everything that is happening on the server side.

It is way more complex as it works with the processed and received data. And if something doesn’t work correctly, the website or application won’t meet the user’s expectations. For instance, a customer is ordering service on the website. They push the Order button, but the data is not sent to the server. Therefore, the information cannot be processed.

The backend is responsible for saving and organizing data and making sure everything on the frontend (client-side) works. The backend constantly communicates with the frontend, sending and receiving information to be displayed on a web page or app as the case may be.

Backend languages and frameworks

There are so many languages one can use for backend development but it all boils down to which software (mobile, website, and desktop) you want to work on. Let's see some backend languages;

C#

C# is a general-purpose, multi-paradigm programming language. It encompasses static typing, strong typing, lexically scoped, imperative, declarative, functional, generic, and most importantly object-oriented, and component-oriented programming disciplines.

C# is one of those programming languages that can be used for backend development, either from a website using ASP.NET Core, mobile app via Xamarin Forms or MAUI, or desktop applications using Winform or WPF and other web services like APIs, etc. To get started with C#, check out the Microsoft docs here.

Other backend programming languages include;

• JavaScript – Express.js and Spring for Java
• Ruby – Ruby on Rails
• Python – Django and Flask for Python

Technologies used for backend development

We have answered the question ​​’What are frontend and backend technologies?’, but now let’s focus on the specific technologies used by back end development:

• Containerisation tools that help to scale apps and facilitate the process of deployment
• APIs that help to communicate with the system 
• Databases needed for sufficient performance of the app
• Search engines that provide fast analysis of the code

Differences Between Frontend and Backend Development

Finally, we got to the differences between these two aspects of development. Even though they are working to serve one purpose – creating a website or app, they cover different needs, use, and implement additional technologies.

• They Cover Different Needs

Frontend development’s main goal is to make the ‘interface’ of the website or app look great. Backend development is accountable for the satisfactory working of data and servers.

• They Use Different Languages

Throughout this article, you have already noticed that backend and frontend developers implement different languages and frameworks. The backend hardly ever uses HTML, while the frontend can hardly use Python or C#.

• They Have a Huge Difference in Prices

We are yet to discuss the pricing yet, but it is one of the key differences between frontend and backend development. According to Glassdoor, an average frontend developer’s salary is $87,240, while an average backend developer’s salary is about $94,455. It means that front development will cost less than the backend, note these statistics may change by the time you check.

In summary, frontend and backend work together to make a complete software that is very usable. Also, to build most software both must be involved. However, that's not always the case because one developer can be both the frontend and backend developer. And such developers are referred to as Full-Stack Developers.

If you are not confident about your programming journey, I suggest you learn more about the right mindset to build up before diving into any programming language.

Good luck in your development journey!!!

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