Scalable software: grow without rebuilding

What does software scalability mean?

When people think of scalability, they often only think of more visitors. But software has to be able to grow in several ways:

• More users: the software stays fast when lots of people log in at once.
• More data: searching, filtering and reports keep working as your database grows from a thousand to a hundred thousand rows.
• More features: you can add new parts without existing ones falling over.
• More locations or customers: for example a second branch or several companies in one system.
• More developers: the code is set up so another developer can carry on with it later.

That last one is often forgotten. Software that only the original builder understands scales badly, even if it's technically fast.

When should you plan for scalable software?

Not every project needs the same attention to growth. An internal tool for ten staff is different from a platform you sell to hundreds of customers. Ask yourself these questions:

• How many users do you expect in a year, and in three years? Be realistic.
• Is the amount of data growing fast, for example through photos, measurements or transactions?
• Are there peak moments, such as a promotion, a season or a fixed deadline?
• Do you want to offer the software to other businesses later, as with a SaaS platform?
• How bad is it if the software is slow or unavailable for an hour?

The more you answer 'yes' or 'a lot' here, the more important it is to build smart from the start.

Signs your software isn't growing with you

Already using software and wondering whether it will hold up? Look out for these signs:

• Pages and reports get slower and slower as more data goes in.
• At busy moments the software freezes or throws error messages.
• Every small change causes new bugs elsewhere.
• Adding a new feature takes more and more time and money.
• People are keeping separate Excel lists next to the system, because the system can't do something.
• Nobody dares to run updates any more, for fear something will break.

If you recognise several of these, it's time to see whether your existing software can be improved or whether replacing outdated software is the smarter move.

How to build a scalable web application

Scalability is mainly about choices you make at the start. They don't have to be expensive, as long as you make them deliberately:

• A good data model. How data is stored decides later how quickly you can search and report. Cutting corners here is expensive afterwards.
• Separate parts with clear boundaries. Invoicing, planning and customer management aren't tangled together, so you can change them independently.
• Heavy work in the background. Tasks such as large exports or sending emails run in a queue, so the user doesn't have to wait.
• Caching. Data that's requested often is stored temporarily so it doesn't have to be recalculated every time.
• Hosting that can grow. In the cloud you can add more computing power without moving. Read more about hosting for a web application.
• Integrations through an API. That way you can connect other systems later without rebuilding the core.
• Automated tests. They catch bugs before they go live, so you can keep building with confidence.

Building for scale without overpaying

The biggest mistake with scalability isn't doing too little, but too much. Building for a million users when you'll soon have a hundred costs a lot of time and money. It also makes the software more complicated and therefore more expensive to maintain.

A healthy approach is: build for what you realistically expect over the next few years, and make sure the foundation allows you to scale up later. That means a clean data model, logical parts and hosting that can grow. Expensive solutions to problems you don't have yet can wait.

An example. An installation company has a planning tool built for fifteen engineers. In three years it expects perhaps forty engineers and a second branch. Then it's smart to include branches in the data model already, even though there's only one now. That costs little extra during the build. A setup with dozens of separate servers and its own ops team, on the other hand, would be overkill for this company. That money is better spent on features the engineers use every day.

Starting with a new idea? Then a small first version is often wiser. Read about that in having an MVP built.

Common mistakes with software scalability

• Choosing the newest, most complex technology because big tech companies use it too.
• Ignoring the database until it's too late.
• Building everything in one big file or one enormous function, so nobody dares touch it any more.
• No documentation, so only the original developer knows how it works.
• Not measuring. Without insight into speed and errors you don't know where the bottleneck is.
• Skipping maintenance, so the components you use go out of date and later all have to be replaced at once.

Having scalable software built by Violexa

At Violexa we build custom web applications and software on a foundation that can grow, without you paying for capacity you don't need. We first ask about your plans for the coming years and base the technical choices on those. We explain them to you in plain English.

Custom work starts from €1,799 excl. VAT (€2,177 incl. VAT) per project. Larger projects get a fixed price in writing up front. After that you can choose a maintenance plan, so the software stays secure and up to date while you grow.

Wondering whether your current software can handle your growth, or want something new built? Book a free quickscan. In a 30-minute conversation, online or on site, we look at your situation. Afterwards you get short written advice with a price indication, with no obligation.

Frequently asked questions