Front-end and back-end might sound scary to the uninitiated, but they’re actually concepts most people can learn to understand.

The Front-end

If you asked a web developer what the front-end of a website was, they’d say it’s pretty much everything a user sees. This includes the website layout, colors, buttons, images, text, and most importantly, the code that tells the browser how to behave and appears to the user in the form of HTML and CSS.

When someone compliments a website’s design saying “this looks good”, “this is user-friendly”, or “this website is nice”, they’re actually complimenting the front-end. The front-end is what communicates with your users.

The Back-end

The back-end of a website is everything that happens under the hood and is invisible to the user. This includes the web server, databases, and programs that handle something like filling out a form to place an online order.

An example of the back-end doing its job is when someone places an order and the website updates the stock of that item. In the case of a contact form, it sends an email. These are all examples of the back-end quietly doing its job, as it should be.

The Restaurant analogy

A restaurant has a front-end and back-end as well. The front-end of a restaurant could be the waiters, the tables, the décor, and the food. The back-end could be the chef, the food prep, and the rest of the kitchen staff.

The front-end is the dining room: the tables, the menus, the decorations, the overall customer experience.

The back-end is the kitchen: the food prep, the ingredient storage, and order management. Beautiful dining rooms will not compensate for bad food or rude staff. Good food in an unwelcoming dining room is pointless, too.

Full-stack: doing both

A full-stack developer works on both the front-end and back-end, which is a rare but valuable skill.

Why small businesses rarely need to know this, but it still helps

You don’t have to know every detail about front-end and back-end development to run a small business, but it can give you talking points when you meet with developers to explain what you want.

Don’t forget to ask your developer if something has an effect on the front-end or back-end (or both). It helps you set expectations about timelines for certain changes.

– Front-end: what users see (design, layout)

– Back-end: what happens behind the scenes (logic, databases, servers)

– Full-stack: both

What Sunneo handles

We handle web development for the front-end and back-end, so you don’t need to manage multiple teams each.

We take care to make sure everything looks and feels cohesive on your site, not just how it functions.

Why the front-end/back-end split matters:

Knowing the difference between front-end and back-end can help you identify problems on your site. Broken, unaligned pages typically indicate an issue with your front-end. Meanwhile, broken forms that fail to send or bookings that do not save indicate a problem with your back-end.

Clear reporting helps with a quick resolution:

When reporting a problem, it’s best to include the steps you took to reach that point in case the problem is front-end or back-end. It will help us determine where the issue lies and resolve it faster.

Information and insights below will help you understand how to balance your front-end and back-end work:

There are use cases when back-end reliance is minimal and more emphasis can be placed on the front-end of a web-based application or service (i.e. a brochure website). Other web-based applications, digi-services like booking and shopping systems, will rely more on back-end logic to function properly.

Feel free to ask us how we break down features as it can help set expectations in terms of cost and time.

To learn more about our services or to request a quote contact us at /contact/