Sysiq is an interactive platform to learn system design by building and simulating real architectures in the browser.

How does the system design simulator work?

The simulator lets you drag and drop components like load balancers, databases, and caches, and see how traffic flows, fails, or scales in real-time.

Is Sysiq free to use?

Sysiq offers a free tier to learn the basics, with premium modules available for deep-dives into advanced system architecture and scaling.

Engineering Blog

Deep dives into system architecture, scalability, and performance. Written by engineers, for engineers.

How to Scale to 1 Million Users: A Practical Guide

Learn the step-by-step architectural evolution from a single server to a distributed, highly available system serving a massive user base.

July 12, 2026

8 min read

Understanding the CAP Theorem in Practice

Consistency, Availability, Partition Tolerance: Pick two. We break down what this means for modern distributed databases.

July 5, 2026

6 min read

How Discord Stores Billions of Messages (Inspired by ByteByteGo)

An architectural deep-dive into how Discord evolved their storage layer from MongoDB to Cassandra, and eventually to ScyllaDB to handle extreme scale.

July 14, 2026

12 min read

Kafka vs RabbitMQ: Which Message Broker Should You Choose?

A comprehensive breakdown of when to use a dumb broker with smart consumers (Kafka) versus a smart broker with dumb consumers (RabbitMQ).

July 15, 2026

9 min read

The 5-Step System Design Interview Framework

A proven, structured approach to acing your FAANG system design interviews. Never get lost during the whiteboard session again.

July 16, 2026

7 min read