Depending on implementation, virtual machines can get to like, 99% of the performance of bare metal. So the “overhead” of virtualisation outweighs the alternative of needing 1 machine per client
edit - containers, machines, k8s etc.
On some cloud providers you can use entirely isolated machines, if that is a requirement.
If not, you use virtual machines which provide x cpu y memory etc. That VM is isolated from other VMs and the host.
Above that you can get constructs (cloud specific) like App Services (azure). Its a virtual machine but abstracted further so you are deploying into the web server on a virtual machine without needing to configure the VM or web server.
Containers are sort of like virtual machines but they are designed to isolate and run single processes.
K8s (Kubernetes) is a container orchestration platform. Its a system you deploy, and into which you can add containers, networking, that sort of thing. Kubernetes then manages the lifecycle, creation and tear down of these containers.
This a simpler overview written on my phone, someone may come add more details / correct me
For backend, you won’t go wrong with something like c# .NET stack.
Personally id recommend building simple projects with both front and backend. You can still focus on backend but it will give you a feel of how a whole project hangs together. How to build APIs for the front end to call.
Whatever project you decide on building, definitely look at adding authentication and roles/scopes for APIs. It’s something I regularly see people struggle with
It seems that way with a lot of REST clients for whatever reason.
It starts off as what we all want - a simple rest client, maybe storing environments and requests
Then companies start building more features to try and create a whole community or ecosystem
They start asking for account creation. Then team creation to share with your team. Then an enterprise plan. Then they gimp the original features and paywall them.
Looking at you, Postman, Insomnia, Thunderclient