🎬 This article is a companion to my YouTube video. Watch it here: Introduction Every great web application with millions of users has an even greater back end — and it has to be. Accessing your app over a prolonged period of time will test the integrity, availability, and speed of your back end. Backend technology can be inexpensive, or it can cost you thousands of dollars. So what's the deal here? Let me warn you that this channel is highly opinionated. I am sharing the tools that I use and how I use them. For my back end that powers my web apps, I use Directus for my headless CMS, supported by a PostgreSQL and Redis database, hosted on a VPS , and managed by Coolify . Wow, that is a mouthful — and in this series we will explore how they all work together. So let's tackle each technology one at a time, starting with the VPS. What is a VPS? A Virtual Private Server, known as a VPS, is a virtual environment created on a physical server.…