Stackauthority
Independent AnalysisNo vendor sponsorship

Research for engineering leaders who buy the stack, not the story.

StackAuthority publishes field-tested analysis on frontend, backend, AI data engineering and devops - for CTOs and VPs making seven-figure platform bets.

COVERAGE60 vendors tracked
LAST UPDATEMay 13
ACTIVE SCORECARDS6
RESEARCH CLIENTSCTOs at 38 firms
NEXT BRIEFThu · Runtime security
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REPORT №04 · Q2 2026

Application Modernization: A Buying Guide for Legacy System Transformation at Enterprise Scale

A buying guide for application modernization services that names the four buying mistakes, the six SOW clauses, an eight-criterion weighted vendor rubric, and the four red flags that disqualify a vendor.

Vendors evaluated
60
Dimensions
9
Methodology
Double-blind
Data window
18 months
The Feed

Recent analysis

MAY 13SCORECARDLeading Application Modernization Service Providers (2026)Ishan Vel24 minMAY 13BRIEFApplication Modernization: A Buying Guide for Legacy System Transformation at Enterprise ScaleRowan Quill19 minMAY 13MAPReplatform, Refactor, or Rebuild: A Decision Framework for Application ModernizationMira Voss18 minMAY 13MAPMonolith-to-Services Decomposition: A Strangler-Fig Implementation BlueprintTalia Rune23 minAPR 23BRIEFAI Governance and Evaluation Tooling: A CTO Buyer's Guide to Shipping Production-Ready AI Systems (2026)Mira Voss34 minAPR 23BRIEFEnterprise Frontend Stack Selection: A Buying Guide for 3 to 5 Year Technology Bets (2026)Rowan Quill37 minAPR 23BRIEFMobile Engineering Strategy: A Buying Guide for Native, Cross-Platform, and Web at Enterprise Scale (2026)Ishan Vel35 minAPR 23MAPMicro-Frontend Migration Blueprint: Module Federation, Single-SPA, and When Neither Fits (2026)Mira Voss27 min
The Firm

Four analysts.
Operators, not career analysts.

Every brief is written by someone who has run the system in production. That is the whole thesis. We do not hire career analysts.

IV
Ishan Vel
Research Analyst · AI engineering operations
READING LIST →
MV
Mira Voss
Research Analyst · platform architecture strategy and cloud cost governance
READING LIST →
RQ
Rowan Quill
Research Analyst · vendor evaluation frameworks and shortlist methodology
READING LIST →
TR
Talia Rune
Research Analyst · security governance
READING LIST →
Advisory
Retainer · 2025

“We were three weeks from signing a $1.4M observability renewal. StackAuthority's analysis killed the deal in one meeting and saved us eleven months of architectural debt.”

VP of Platform · Series-D fintech, 900 engineers
The Weekly Brief

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4,280 CXO READERSISSUE 47 · THU APR 25