ByteByteGoHq/system-design-101Public

Explain complex systems using visuals and simple terms. Help you prepare for system design interviews.

AI summary: A visual guide to complex system design concepts and software architecture patterns.

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OtherCreated Sep 18, 2023Last push 1y ago+166 stars this week+236 this month

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since Oct 15, 2023
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86.7K stars as of Aug 7, 2026, tracked back to Oct 15, 2023. Historical curve reconstructed from public GitHub event archives, calibrated to the current total.

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  • Landmark project

    86,741 stars

  • Continuous integration

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  • Top 10% tracked

    Rank 77 of 1058

What system-design-101 does

This repository serves as an extensive, visual encyclopedia for system design, distributed systems, and software architecture. It breaks down complex engineering topics—like load balancing, database scaling, caching strategies, and microservices—into easy-to-understand diagrams and concise explanations. The content is structured to help software engineers prepare for system design interviews and improve their practical understanding of how large-scale applications are built. It acts as a companion to the ByteByteGo newsletter and book, providing high-quality, actionable reference material.

Software engineers, system architects, and computer science students preparing for interviews or looking to deepen their understanding of distributed systems.

  • Visual explanations: Uses high-quality diagrams to illustrate abstract concepts like Paxos, Kafka architecture, or CDN routing.
  • Broad topic coverage: Includes sections on databases, networking, cloud infrastructure, and security.
  • Interview prep focus: Highlights the specific patterns and trade-offs frequently discussed in FAANG system design interviews.
  • Real-world examples: Explains how major companies like Netflix, Twitter, and Discord architect their systems.
  • Continuous updates: Regularly adds new diagrams and topics reflecting modern software engineering practices.

Where teams use it

System design interview preparation

Software engineers study the diagrams and trade-offs to prepare for technical interviews at top tech companies.

Architecture reference

Senior developers use the guides as a quick reference when designing new microservices or scaling existing infrastructure.

Educational onboarding

Engineering managers share specific topics with junior developers to help them understand the team's distributed architecture.

Technology evaluation

Architects use the clear comparisons (e.g., SQL vs. NoSQL, Redis vs. Memcached) to aid in technical decision-making.

Getting started: Browse the README.md to find links to specific topics and diagrams.

README

main branch

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ByteByteGoHq%2Fsystem-design-101 | Trendshift

System Design 101

Explain complex systems using visuals and simple terms.

Whether you're preparing for a System Design Interview or you simply want to understand how systems work beneath the surface, we hope this repository will help you achieve that.

Table of Contents

License

This work is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

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