1. Your laptop
A script, a notebook, a file you open. Cost $0. Dies when the lid closes. Correct for “just me” more often than it feels.
Explainer · outline · 2026-08-12
Where the code runs
People think they are choosing a framework. They are choosing a place. Get the place right and the brand on the box matters less.
The lie
Stack advice starts at names: React or Svelte, Next or Rails, Python or TypeScript. Those names smuggle a location. Next.js assumes code runs on a server and in the browser, and that hosting is shaped like Vercel. A Flask app on a $5 VPS assumes one process on a box you rent. A Worker assumes a function that wakes up, runs, and dies. If you cannot say the location sentence, you do not have a stack opinion. You have a brand preference.
Six places
Almost every amateur idea fits in one of these. Some products use two. Almost none need four on day one.
2. The browser
HTML, CSS, and whatever JS you actually needed. Already on every visitor’s machine. Cannot keep a secret (API keys), cannot be trusted with money, cannot remember another computer’s data by itself.
3. An always-on server
A process that is running whether or not anyone is visiting. Forms, databases, sockets, cron. You pay for the time it exists. A VPS, Railway, Fly, a dusty NUC.
4. A function that wakes up
“Serverless.” Code starts because a request (or a schedule) arrived, then it is gone. You pay per wake-up and per millisecond. Great until the thing must remember an open connection or stay warm.
5. The edge
Still a function, placed near the visitor. Fine for rewriting, auth checks, HTML that does not need a fat home-region database. Not magic. Not free. Latency to your data still exists.
6. A phone
A real installable thing. You do not need this on day one for a website that works in a browser. A home-screen bookmark is allowed.
What dies when
- Laptop
- The process dies when you close it. The file usually does not.
- Browser tab
- Memory dies on refresh unless you wrote it down (
localStorage, a file, a URL). Secrets in the bundle are public. - Always-on server
- Dies when the box does, or when you forget to pay. Memory in RAM dies then too; memory in a database file does not.
- Function / edge
- Dies at the end of the request. Anything you needed next time must live somewhere else (KV, a DB, object storage). An open websocket is swimming upstream.
- Phone
- Dies when the OS kills the app. Background work is a privilege, not a right.
Frameworks as packaged answers
- A raw HTML file — laptop or browser. Build step optional. This site, today.
- Astro / Eleventy / Hugo — code ran at build time, on your machine or in CI. The browser receives files. See Static site, actually.
- Next.js (typical Vercel deploy) — browser + functions that wake up + optional always-on assumptions smuggled in via serverful add-ons. Default gravity well for “website.”
- Rails / Laravel / Django / Flask / Express on a box — always-on server. HTML can come from the server. A complete architecture.
- Cloudflare Worker / AWS Lambda — function that wakes up. Pair with something that stores, or store nothing.
- Streamlit / Gradio — Python script that grew a UI, hosted as an always-on process. Fine. Not a browser-native site.
- HTMX / Hotwire — not a place. A way for the browser to ask an always-on server (or a function) for more HTML. Useless without that other place.
How to use this from a result card
- Read the tier. Tier 0 is laptop. Tier 1 is browser (files). Tier 2 is an always-on server or a function plus a store. Tier 3 is the same places with more obligations, not new places.
- If the card says “files on a CDN,” you are not looking for a React framework. You are looking for a compiler or a text editor.
- If the card says “keep a connection open,” functions that wake up are the wrong place. That is the whole point of the realtime recipe.
- If the card says “the model is the product,” the secret lives on a server or a worker — never in the browser bundle.
Still an outline
A later pass should add: cold starts with a number attached, what “edge” cannot see, a picture of a request crossing places, and why “full stack TypeScript” is a hiring slogan rather than a location. The six places will not change.