Building·DevTools·2025

Distributed URL Shortener

TinyURL clone — consistent hashing, bloom filters, Redis at scale.

GoRedisPostgreSQLReactDocker
RoleSolo builderScopeSystem Design · Backend · Distributed SystemsStatusIn progress · target ship Q3 2026

Overview

A production-grade distributed URL shortener built end-to-end. Core engineering: base62 encoding, consistent hashing for write distribution across shards, bloom filter to reject duplicates before DB hits, Redis for hot-URL caching, and a sliding-window rate limiter. Built in Go (backend) with a React dashboard for analytics.

Why this matters

Same scale problems Zepto/Swiggy catalog & ETA services face — consistent hashing + read-path optimization.

Implementation Highlights

  • Base62 encoding with consistent hashing for horizontal shard routing
  • Bloom filter layer to reject duplicate URLs before hitting Postgres
  • Redis hot-URL caching — LRU eviction for top 10% of traffic
  • Sliding-window rate limiter per user/IP in Redis Lua
ShippedIn progress · target ship Q3 2026

Target: 10K RPS read path. Production-grade distributed system — implemented end-to-end, not whiteboarded.

Key highlights

  • Base62 encoding with consistent hashing for horizontal shard routing
  • Bloom filter layer to reject duplicate URLs before hitting Postgres
  • Redis hot-URL caching — LRU eviction for top 10% of traffic
  • Sliding-window rate limiter per user/IP in Redis Lua

Active development — building this as a production-grade distributed systems reference.

Rahul Nainala — Senior Full-Stack Engineer | Bengaluru