What is the best development environment for building a custom CRM system?

[Ray Welsh]

What recommendations are there for the back end and front end tools that will allow me to prototype, deploy and scale/further develop an application similar to a CRM system?

I plan for this to be a responsive web front end initially, a mobile app may follow. 

- which language is best for rapid prototyping and screen/form creation

- which database option is easiest to work with (I have basic SQL knowledge)

- recommended sources of guidance and support

[Jordan (Cloud Platform Support)]

I see that you have also asked about the optimal tools to develop your front-end and backend in the Cloud Developers group. It will be cleaner and more straight forward to move all discussions about your application and design to one form question. All further communication about this should continue in your other post.