10 Technologies That We Will Continue To Use Successfully In 2024

An IT outsourcing company that works with clients in many different industries uses multiple technologies to create the products its clients want. From this text, you can find out the main technologies we use successfully and especially how we use them. 

1. PHP (Hypertext Preprocessor) is a widely used open-source language that allows developers to create dynamic web pages and applications. PHP is well-suited for tasks such as processing form data, interacting with databases, and generating dynamic content, making it a fundamental tool for building interactive and functional websites.

How we use it at Control F5: 

We have been working with PHP since we founded the company and this is also the backend technology we use in most projects. Thus, we have developed with PHP a very wide range of product types, from presentation websites, and e-commerce solutions to complex custom platforms, back-office solutions, APIs, or dedicated micro-services.

Some of the projects we developed by using PHP are  Investimental – a financial services company that offers investment solutions, Travel Planner, e-Rovinieta.ro –  an online road tax payment platform for UNTRR (National Union of Road Hauliers from Romania), Fotografi-cameramani.ro,  Bitsoft – a Romanian company that develops IT solutions for hotels.

Laravel is a powerful open-source PHP web framework designed for building modern, robust web applications. Laravel simplifies common tasks in web development, such as routing, authentication, caching, and database management, enabling developers to create scalable and maintainable applications with ease. It has gained popularity for its developer-friendly features, that includes comprehensive documentation and a supportive community.

How we use it at Control F5: 

We have been working with Laravel for more than six years, since version 5.X and it is our preferred framework among all PHP frameworks, although we have experience and projects on other PHP frameworks such as Code Igniter or Symphony.

We have used Laravel to implement projects in a wide variety of fields such as travel, transportation, financial, medical etc. We use Laravel both as a backend-only framework and as a monolithic solution, where both frontend and backend are fully covered by Laravel.Some of the projects we developed by using Laravel are Fotografi-cameramani.ro, Bitsoft  , Oladent – a dental clinics marketplace, Travel Planner and e-Rovinieta.ro –  an online road tax payment platform for UNTRR (National Union of Road Hauliers from Romania).

Vue.js is a progressive JavaScript framework used for building user interfaces, particularly for single-page applications. It allows developers to create interactive and dynamic front-end experiences with ease. Vue.js is known for its simplicity and flexibility, enabling developers to incrementally adopt its features into existing projects.

How we use it at Control F5: 

If Laravel is our first choice when talking about the backend, so VueJs is the framework we choose most often as a solution for the frontend component of a project. We initially chose VueJS for the ease with which it integrates with Laravel in its initial versions, but later we found VueJS to be a versatile, stable, very easy-to-use FE solution with a great community behind it.

We have used VueJS in projects that vary in complexity and purpose, from simple reactive components in a website or online store to standalone SPA applications, to custom components for Laravel Nova. We have also used VueJS for mobile application development, using the Cordova framework.

Some of the projects we developed by using Vue.js are Investimental– a financial services company that offers investment solutions, Travel Planner, e-Rovinieta.ro –  an online road tax payment platform for UNTRR (National Union of Road Hauliers from Romania) and Bitsoft – a web platform focused on the easiness of searching by specific criteria and access from mobile devices. 

Laravel Nova is an administration panel for Laravel applications that enhances developer productivity by automating common administrative tasks and offering a visually appealing dashboard for efficient backend management.

How we use it at Control F5: 

We initially used Laravel Nova for internal projects that had relatively simple functionalities and gradually discovered the real strength behind the technology as we chose it as a back-office solution for increasingly complex projects. What makes it so flexible and versatile is the possibility to develop custom components (Tools) and the huge community behind the project that develops countless function packages covering even the most particular requirements that can arise in projects such as administration modules.

In the last releases, Laravel Nova has proven to be the ideal solution for almost all projects that have admin/back-office components.
Some of the projects we developed by using Laravel Nova are Investimental – a financial services company that offers investment solutions,  Oladent – a dental clinics marketplace and NutriCare – a platform aimed at providing nutritional assessments and creating dedicated meal plans.

Laravel Forge is a server provisioning and deployment platform that streamlines the process of setting up and managing web servers, automating tasks like server configuration, deployment, and maintenance. Laravel Forge is used to simplify the deployment workflow, ensuring an efficient hosting environment for Laravel projects without the need for extensive server management expertise.

How we use it at Control F5: 

We successfully use Laravel Forge as a complete DevOps solution for small and medium projects in general, but also for large projects in development environments.  We appreciate it most for the ease with which we can set up and configure a new environment, from initial setup, certificate installation, domain management, and deployment pipelines to log analysis.

The most popular combination we use is Laravel Forge, with the server in DigitalOcean, for projects built on Laravel, WordPress, or frontend-only SPA (Single-Page Applications).

Some of the projects we developed by using Laravel Forge are  Oladent – a dental clinics marketplace, Wedme.ro, one of the most popular online magazines for brides in Romania and  NutriCare – a platform aimed at providing nutritional assessments and creating dedicated meal plans.

 Flutter is an open-source user interface software development toolkit created by Google. It is used for building natively compiled applications for mobile, web, and desktop from a single codebase. Flutter’s key strength lies in its ability to provide a consistent and visually rich user experience across different platforms, making it a popular choice for developers aiming to create cross-platform applications efficiently.

How we use it at Control F5:

We use Flutter as our first choice when we have to implement mobile applications. In most cases, a cross-platform solution such as Flutter is the right choice over native solutions, where two different codebases are required and all the challenges that come with that: different teams, timelines that can easily get out of sync and, at some point, even different roadmaps. Over the years, we have worked with several cross-platform solutions, such as Titanium, React Native, but also VueJS and Cordova. In the end, I chose Flutter, mainly because of the community behind the project, the performance, and the diversity of the widget library but also the ease of integration with native iOS and Android features (camera, geolocation, or third-party integrations).

One of the projects that we used Flutter to develop it is Bitsoft – a web platform focused on the easiness of searching by specific criteria and access from mobile devices. 

Swagger, now known as the OpenAPI Specification, is a set of rules and tools for building and documenting RESTful APIs. It allows developers to define the structure and behavior of their APIs in a standardized format, making it easier to understand and consume. Swagger is used for creating interactive and machine-readable API documentation, streamlining the development process and enhancing collaboration between frontend and backend teams.

How we use it at Control F5:

We have used Swagger in countless projects that have an API component, mainly for documenting APIs and data models, but also as an API interaction tool. We have also worked with several configuration formats, but for projects built in Laravel.

We recommend this package to those interested:

https://github.com/DarkaOnLine/L5-Swagger

Microservices is an architectural approach used to create scalable, flexible, and maintainable applications, allowing for easier development, deployment, and updates of individual components without affecting the entire system.

How we use it at Control F5:

Microservices is an architecture that we have successfully applied especially to complex projects to separate and simplify certain components.

OpenAI is an artificial intelligence research laboratory that is known for developing cutting-edge language models like GPT-3 (more known as ChatGPT), used for natural language processing, chatbots, content generation, and various applications across industries, showcasing advancements in the field of artificial intelligence.

How we use it at Control F5:

We’ve been using ChatGPT in particular, which is definitely the technology of 2023, and we all know the popularity and speed with which it has been adopted. We have used this technology in different areas such as travel, medical, accounting, marketing and media. The applicability of solutions based on API integration with ChatGPT or various other models has been very varied: from simple requests with specific purposes (e.g. translation or summarization of texts) to complex integrations with CRM / ERP for data processing, response extraction or bots that interact directly with the end customer of a platform, in a personalized context, based on each customer’s data.

 UiPath is a leading Robotic Process Automation (RPA) platform that enables businesses to automate repetitive and rule-based tasks. It provides a user-friendly environment for designing and deploying software robots, known as “bots,” to automate various business processes. UiPath is used to increase operational efficiency by automating routine tasks, improving accuracy, and allowing human workers to focus on more strategic and value-added activities within an organization.

How we use it at Control F5:

We have applied UiPath solutions in a wide variety of areas, from data processing involving repetitive tasks (accounting processes or data scraping) to solutions integrated with other third-party platforms through integration with external APIs. Another use case where we use RPA is for the testing process of software products, where we automate a good part of the testing scenarios.

Control F5 Team

Blog Editor