Why Maison Code Discusses This

At Maison Code Paris, we act as the architectural conscience for our clients. We often inherit “modern” stacks that were built without a foundational understanding of scale. We see simple APIs that take 4 seconds to respond because of N+1 query problems, and “Microservices” that cost $5,000/month in idle cloud fees.

We discuss this topic because it represents a critical pivot point in engineering maturity. Implementing this correctly differentiates a fragile MVP from a resilient, enterprise-grade platform that can handle Black Friday traffic without breaking a sweat.

Technology moves in fad cycles, but Engineering moves in value cycles. At Maison Code Paris, we are responsible for the technical strategy of billion-dollar brands. We cannot afford to chase every shiny new Javascript framework on Hacker News. We also cannot afford to be left behind on legacy stacks.

The Methodology

This is our Tech Radar for 2026. It follows the Thoughtworks methodology, categorizing technologies into four rings:

Adopt: Mature. Standard. Use this for new projects.
Trial: Promising. Use for low-risk or pilot projects.
Assess: Interesting. Watch closely, but don’t bet the farm.
Hold: Dangerous. Stop using this, even if it was popular 5 years ago.

1. ADOPT (The Standard)

These are the technologies we bet our reputation on. If you hire us, this is what we build with.

React Server Components (RSC)

The debate is over. Next.js App Router (and the RSC paradigm) is the standard for building complex Web Applications. The ability to fetch data on the server, directly inside your component, and stream HTML to the client without shipping JS bundles is a generational leap.

Why: Zero-Bundle-Size components. Direct DB access. SEO by default.
Verdict: Adapt or die.

TypeScript (Strict Mode)

We no longer write Javascript. Period. Types are not just for error checking; they are your documentation. A codebase without types is a codebase that cannot be refactored safely.

Rule: noImplicitAny: true is non-negotiable.

Tailwind CSS (v4)

CSS-in-JS (Styled Components, Emotion) is dead. The runtime cost of calculating styles is too high for the Core Web Vitals era. Tailwind is a compiler. It generates a static CSS file. It is the fastest possible way to style a UI.

Note: With Tailwind v4 (Oxide engine), builds are instant (Rust-based).

Node.js (LTS) & Postgres

Boring is beautiful. We use Postgres for relational data (Supabase) and Node.js for runtime. While other runtimes (Bun, Deno) are exciting, Node.js has the ecosystem stability enterprise clients demand.

2. TRIAL (The Cutting Edge)

We are actively using these in production for specific use-cases, but they require a senior engineer to manage.

Biome (Replaces ESLint + Prettier)

Biome is a Rust-based toolchain that formats and lints code in milliseconds. It is 35x faster than Prettier.

Why: CI/CD pipelines are too slow. Biome makes them instant.
Risk: Plugin ecosystem is smaller than ESLint.

React Email

Writing HTML for emails is archaic (tables, inline styles). React Email allows you to write standard React components and compile them to the messy HTML clients like Outlook require.

Why: Developer Sanity.

Vector Databases (Pinecone)

For Search and Recommendations, standard SQL LIKE queries are obsolete. See our article on Vector Databases.

Why: Semantic understanding is the new baseline for UX.

3. ASSESS (Watch Closely)

AI “Agents” (Autonomous Loops)

The idea of AI that loops until it solves a problem (AutoGPT style). Current state: Fragile. They get stuck in loops. They hallucinate steps.

Our Stance: We use Chained Calls (Deterministic flows), not Autonomous Agents, for client work. We are watching this space, but we do not deploy it to production yet.

Tauri (vs Electron)

Building Desktop apps using Rust + Webview instead of shipping a whole Chrome instance (Electron).

Pros: 5MB binary vs 150MB binary.
Cons: Backend must be written in Rust (High learning curve).

4. HOLD (Stop Doing This)

Micro-Frontends

The idea of splitting your frontend into 5 different deployables owned by different teams.

Reality: A versioning hellscape. Inconsistent UI. Performance drag due to multiple React instances.
Alternative: Monorepos (Turborepo) with well-defined module boundaries.

Docker-in-Docker (for local Dev)

Running your entire dev environment in containers.

Reality: Slow. File system sync issues on Mac. High CPU.
Alternative: Run Node/Postgres locally or use a cloud dev environment (Codespaces).

”Headless” CMS without Visual Editing

Giving marketing teams a JSON tree editor (Contentful raw) without a Live Preview.

Reality: Marketers hate it. They act blindly.
Standard: If you use Headless, you MUST implement the Preview Mode (Sanity Presentation, Prismic Slices).

Conclusion

The goal of architecture is not to be “New”. It is to be Maintainable. We chose the “ADOPT” ring because they optimize for Change. The “HOLD” ring optimizes for Silos.

Choose wisely.

Hire our Architects to review your stack against this radar.