Full stack web development as a term evolved due to the separation of roles between front end and back end developers. A “full stack” developer is a developer that can work in both front end and back end technologies.
The “stack” however could be quite different between organizations and developers. One common stack is LAMP: Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP. It’s called a stack because each technology is a layer. Linux is the operating system, Apache is the web server, MySQL is the database, and PHP is the server-side language.
There are many variations to this open-source stack: Amazon, Linux, NGINX, Node, React, MongoDB. The combinations are almost limitless and dependent on architecture goals and team proficiency.
The best definition we believe is what we have outlined — simply combining the skills of a front end developer (FED) with a back-end developer in one role.