How I Build Scalable Modern Web Applications for Real Users

I show the decisions I make in apps that are used by real people. It’s time to move beyond the toy app tutorials.

This post details the languages, libraries, and tools that I’m using to build Skilled.dev , a platform to prepare developers to succeed in coding interviews.

TLDR

UX + Performance + Scalable + Customizable

My decisions focus on automating parts of the process that would prevent me from doing what I want to do — building a product that provides a ton of value to my users. I optimize for fast iteration speed, developer experience, and scalability, without sacrificing control or customization when it’s needed.

Cost: $77 all-in right now. This is all in infrastructure costs and likely won’t grow to be more much expensive for a while. There will be additional costs like email marketing and transaction fees.

Stress Test Results: I sent 10000 page requests over the course of 1 minute (167 per second) and the infrastructure didn’t flinch. The overall response time average was 990ms, and the 95th percentile database response time was 75ms. The $7 dyno I’m using didn’t cross 60% usage. I used loader.io to perform the test. This is 10k page views, but I haven’t added up the additional calls it makes inside the page which would be many more.

You can find a more in-depth analysis towards the end of the article in the “Stress Test and Scalability” section.