Creating a Modern, Production-Ready Web Stack with Go, Echo, and HTMX
In the evolving landscape of web development, efficiency, simplicity, and scalability are key. For developers seeking a streamlined approach to building robust web applications with Go, assembling an optimal technology stack can seem daunting. Recently, I put together a comprehensive template that embodies these principles, leveraging modern tools to deliver a clean, production-ready environment.
Introducing the Modern Go Stack
My goal was to craft a minimal yet powerful web server template that enables deployment as a single, self-contained binary—eliminating dependence on heavyweight front-end frameworks or CGO. This stack is designed to maximize developer productivity while ensuring a scalable, maintainable application architecture. Here’s an overview of the core components:
Backend:
– Go 1.24+ — The latest version providing improved language features and performance.
– Echo v4 — A lightweight, high-performance web framework for building RESTful APIs and web servers with ease.
Frontend:
– Templ — A type-safe, server-side HTML component library that simplifies rendering and enhances maintainability.
– HTMX — A progressive enhancement library that enables dynamic, AJAX-driven UI updates without heavy JavaScript or front-end frameworks. It promotes a responsive user experience while maintaining simplicity.
Data Layer:
– SQLC — A powerful tool that generates type-safe Go code directly from raw SQL queries, reducing boilerplate and enhancing safety.
– SQLite Driver (Pure Go) — Ensures zero dependency on CGO, streamlining deployment and reducing complexity.
Development Workflow:
– Mage — A build automation tool that manages tasks and automates workflows efficiently.
– Air — A hot-reloading tool to accelerate development iterations by automatically refreshing the server on code changes.
Key Features and Deployment:
The resulting application produces a single, dependency-free binary approximately 14MB in size. It incorporates essential security measures such as CSRF protection and input sanitization, structured logging for observability, and integrated Prometheus metrics to facilitate monitoring. All these features are ready out of the box, making it suitable for production environments.
The entire project is thoughtfully organized and well-documented, serving as an excellent foundation for new projects or for extending into more complex systems.
Explore the Repository
I invite you to explore the project repository, give it a try, and share your feedback. Whether you’re interested in the architecture, tooling, or the implementation details, your insights are highly valued.
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