How bigSystemsactually work

Free, open-source guides and interactive diagrams that pull real architectures apart — piece by piece, decision by decision.

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20+ guides10+ systems100% free

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Microservices✦Event-Driven✦CQRS✦Hexagonal✦Layered✦Sharding✦Caching✦Load Balancing✦Message Queues✦CDN✦Replication✦Rate Limiting✦

The pattern library

Proven architectures for scalable, maintainable distributed systems — every one interactive, annotated, and free.

A real-time messaging platform with 1:1 and group chat, offline delivery via push notifications, and end-to-end encryption.

18 nodes · 24 edges

A video streaming platform supporting fast video upload and smooth, adaptive streaming.

13 nodes · 15 edges

A microblogging platform with tweet ingestion, hybrid fan-out timelines, typeahead search, and real-time notifications.

38 nodes · 39 edges

A scalable, highly available cloud file storage and synchronization service.

13 nodes · 15 edges

//Field Manual

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Explore every architecture visually. Drag, zoom, resize groups, trace edges — the canvas is yours to manipulate.

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Production-grade system designs — from microservices to video streaming — each one battle-tested and explained end-to-end.

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Every diagram ships with a rich-text architecture breakdown — trade-offs, data flow, scaling decisions, and rationale.

Architecture Breakdown

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Reading is step one. Editing groups, following edge paths, and inspecting nodes is how architecture truly sticks.

Node.Active

//Next Step

Every diagram is free, open-source, and waiting to be pulled apart. No signup. No paywall. Just systems, made legible.