Learn how the biggest systems in the world are actually built. Clear explanations, real diagrams, and full case studies — for the @codewithmuh YouTube series.
This repo is the companion to a YouTube series where we learn system design from scratch and then design real products step by step. Every topic is written as a detailed article with diagrams (not just walls of text), and each one maps to a video.
The goal: a complete beginner should be able to follow along, understand why each decision is made, and walk away able to reason about large-scale systems.
🚧 This repo is actively being built. Star ⭐ it and subscribe to follow along.
- Start with the Fundamentals — the vocabulary and building blocks (load balancing, caching, databases, sharding, CAP, queues, …).
- Then pick a case study below and design a real system end-to-end.
- Each article follows the same repeatable framework, so the approach becomes second nature.
- System Design Fundamentals — the framework + every core building block, beginner → advanced.
| # | System | What you'll learn | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cloud Platform (AWS / Google Cloud) | Control plane vs data plane, virtualization, multi-tenancy, IAM | 🚧 |
| 2 | ChatGPT & Claude (AI Assistant) | LLM inference serving, batching, KV cache, token streaming | 🚧 |
| 3 | News feed, media storage, fan-out | ⬜ | |
| 4 | Real-time messaging, presence, delivery receipts | ⬜ | |
| 5 | Social graph, feed ranking, notifications | ⬜ | |
| 6 | TikTok | Recommendation feed, video delivery at scale | ⬜ |
| 7 | YouTube | Video upload/transcode, streaming, CDN | ⬜ |
| 8 | Twitter / X | Timeline, fan-out on write vs read | ⬜ |
| 9 | Uber | Geospatial matching, real-time location | ⬜ |
| 10 | Netflix | Adaptive streaming, CDN, recommendations | ⬜ |
✅ Published · 🚧 In progress · ⬜ Planned
We use a layered approach so diagrams are both version-controlled and beautiful on video:
- Mermaid — rendered natively inside GitHub for inline flowcharts & sequence diagrams (no image hosting needed).
- Excalidraw — for the polished, hand-drawn architecture diagrams (source
.excalidrawfiles live inassets/excalidraw/, exported PNG/SVG inassets/images/).
See TOOLS.md for the full recommended toolchain — including how to add cloud/logo icons in Excalidraw and the article → YouTube video workflow.
Copy templates/ARTICLE_TEMPLATE.md into a new case-study folder and fill it in. Every system-design problem uses the same framework:
Requirements → Capacity estimation → API design → Data model → High-level design → Deep dives → Bottlenecks & trade-offs
See CONTRIBUTING.md. Issues, corrections, and diagram improvements are welcome.