Why I Chose Go Over Python

I initially built the backend in Python with FastAPI. It worked great. Then I rewrote it in Go, and it worked better. Here's why.

The Python Version

FastAPI is excellent. Auto-generated docs, type hints, async support. The backend was maybe 200 lines of clean Python.

But deployment meant:

• Installing Python 3.12 on the server
• Creating a virtual environment
• Running pip install
• Managing a requirements.txt
• ~50MB RAM idle

The Go Version

The Go backend is about 350 lines using only the standard library (plus SQLite and a markdown parser). But the deployment story is transformative:

go build -o portfolio
scp portfolio server:~/
ssh server "./portfolio"