Technology Stack to Develop a Custom ERP: What You Should Know as a Business Owner

7 min readApr 30, 2021

When a business owner decides that he needs a custom solution to optimize his business he is faced with the question of which vendor to choose for this complex task, also a challenge of communicating with the supplier on technical issues. In this article, you can learn about the structure of ERP, as well as popular technologies for enterprise application building to get an idea of the technological components of back-office software.

An in-depth understanding of the ERP structure, the details of technical implementation, software development technologies will help the business owner to communicate with the software provider in a common language.

1. ERP structure

2. ERP types

3. ERP technologies

So let’s consider all the important tech issues of custom ERP application implementation. You will find out about the parts and types of the enterprise software structure, as well as the technological stack that can be utilized to implement every part of the bespoke ERP system.

ERP structure

The structure of each ERP application embraces the following parts:

the back-end or server part — is the engine of the solution. It includes algorithms that help the user to obtain the necessary information from the database; it serves for the interaction of the user with the database;
the front-end part — is a user interface that helps the user to interact with the server part by sending requests and then receiving a response to these requests;
the database — is a place where information about each area of business activity is stored and organized in a certain way.

ERP Types

As you can see in the picture above depending on the deployment of custom ERP it can be divided into Web or Cloud ERP, Desktop ERP, and Hybrid ERP.

Web/Cloud ERP solution

Web-based or Cloud ERP solution is hosted on the cloud. The database and the back-end part of the web-based ERP run on the cloud too, like Microsoft Azure or AWS. The front-end part is performed via a browser.

Businesses cannot ignore the valuable pros of these types of solutions:

access to the application is possible via any device from any location. The solution runs on any browser, any OS, and can be configured for a great user experience on any device;
the possibility of integration with other programs is high. Web applications have a much greater ability to integrate with other web systems due to their interoperability compared to desktop solutions;
it is easier to maintain. It means you don’t have to worry about the updating of the server for your application running. Any upgrade is a task of the Cloud server vendor;
high scalability and flexibility are available. Web-based solutions are scalable. Web technologies ensure the possibility to expand applications to meet the growing needs of your business;
data protection is high. In the case of disaster, Cloud computing allows all your processes with secured data to keep running;
the upfront costs of web-based software are lower because there is no need for installation.

The main drawbacks of web-based enterprise solutions are monthly or annual fees for the hosting, also a slightly lower performance of the application compared to desktop.
Taking the mentioned pros into consideration, many businesses prefer cloud ERP to manage their activities.

Desktop ERP system

The server-side, as well as the frontend part of the Desktop ERP system, runs on users’ machines. The database here can be hosted on a local server or in the cloud. Computers can be connected locally or on a cloud server.

This solution, based entirely within enterprise hardware, ensures the following benefits:

high performance. Well-written desktop ERP solutions used on decent computers work faster than web-based applications, that require to transmit data via the Internet, which was not originally designed to deliver large web applications;
desktop solutions are a better choice when there is a necessity to interact with the user’s hardware (printers, scanners, cameras, network ports, etc.) on the regular basis;
independence from the Internet connection. When each part of your program runs on your local network, all you need is the power to use the application;
no monthly fees. Once you have installed the solution, you do not need to pay any monthly fee for external server usage, as in the case with web solutions;
high security of data. Hackers have less possibility to access your vulnerable data, than web or cloud solutions, where information is transmitted over the Internet.

But the cons of desktop software are high upfront costs, expensive and time-consuming hardware and software installation, low portability, flexibility (when you can’t access the application from any device and location), and it’s harder to maintain than a web solution.

Hybrid ERP software

Hybrid ERP includes both Cloud and Desktop ERP. Thus, the backend part can be performed through the cloud or the user’s machine, the front-end side — via the browser of any device or computer and the database runs on the cloud server.

Business owners choose this type of ERP to reduce their reliance on software providers and take advantage of both ERP types.

ERP technologies

In accordance with the ERP structure technologies can be divided into technologies for front-end, back-end, and databases development.

Front-end tech stack to develop an interface of the ERP

The most popular tech stack for creating the interface of the solution covers the following technologies:

HTML (HyperText Markup Language) is the basic building module of web development. It structures web content by sections, paragraphs, images, headings, links, and other content blocks. HTML is not a programming language, because it does not create the dynamic functionality of a web page but it organizes and marks up elements on the page in an appropriate architecture.
CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets and is a style sheet language that describes how web content will look on a site. With this tool, the developer can define the color, size, and font of the text, spaces between paragraphs, color or design of background, images, table sizes, other aspects of the web page.
Javascript is a helpful tool to make additional elements in the user interface like sliders, interactive maps, calculators, 2D and 3D animations to create a dynamic functional application. Javascript is a good choice for creating a Web ERP, where the front-end part is performed through a browser.
React (React.js or ReactJS) is a JavaScript library, assigned for the development of dynamic and interactive user interface elements. Developers can use this library to develop a UI of a single page or a mobile application. Its goal is to provide high speed, simplicity, and scalability of front-end development. React is one of the most popular and widely used libraries for ERP UI development. Developers prefer to use React because it is easy to learn, speeds up development, and enables them to code a rich intuitive user interface.

Among Angular.js and Vuejs, React.js is the highest demanded skill at Upwork freelance platform (in %).

Angular.js is a great framework to build responsive and dynamic applications. It is a JavaScript framework maintained by Google. Such a framework is used to create single-page applications. It works across different browsers and devices. Besides, Angular speeds up the web development process because it contains directories to embed compact code in HTML code directly, converting a static page into a dynamic one. AngularJS works on MVC, also MVVM (model-view-controller; model view model) scheme, which divides the application into parts. Each part can be changed independently of the others. Such a scheme enables developers to work with a framework easily and quickly.
Vue.js is a progressive JavaScript framework for creating custom UIs and complex one-page applications. Developers value this framework for its ease in learning, high integration, adaptability, and high performance. It’s no problem to add an interactive element written in Vue.js to a user interface coded in another Javascript framework.

All these tools can be used to develop an engaging user interface of ERP solutions. The choice of one or another front-end framework depends on the skill set of the software development agency and the requirements of the client.

Keep reading this article Technology Stack to Develop a Custom ERP: What You Should Know as a Business Owner in our blog to discover:

If you have any questions or a project in mind, contact us at company@nolt-technologies.com or get in touch.

Nolt technologies team specializes in complex enterprise-class applications development. namely ERP or CRM, engineering software, modules to existing software in various verticals: education, logistics, financial, e-commerce, industrial and more, providing a working partnership with many clients and ensuring the successful delivery of multidisciplinary technological projects.