Social Network Application

Overview

This is a social network application built to explore and learn various modern web technologies. The application allows users to:

• Create user accounts
• Post updates and content
• Follow other users
• View a curated feed of posts
• Receive notifications for new followers and posts

Some of the following parts are still in progress, such as the uploading of posts, sending of notifications and developing the frontend.

Demo

As I am still working on developing the frontend, I haven't had time to deploy the whole project. Below is a demo video showcasing the current frontend with full backend integration:

Social.Network.App.Demo.mp4

Architecture

Below is a high-level system design diagram that outlines the key components of the application architecture:

Key Technologies

This project is designed to leverage a wide range of technologies, including:

• Backend: Golang
• Databases: PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Neo4j Graph Database
• Caching and Queuing: Redis, Kafka
• API Gateway: Kong API Gateway
• Cloud Storage and Delivery: Amazon S3, AWS CloudFront (unimplemented)
• Real-time Notifications: Firebase (unimplemented)
• Containerization: Docker Compose
• Inter-service Communication: gRPC

Key Features

• Prefetching and Caching: Efficient feed generation using caching mechanisms to improve user experience.
• Event-driven Architecture: Kafka is used to process events such as:
  • Generating user feeds when a post is created or a user is followed.
  • Updating user post/following counts asynchronously
  • Sending notifications when users follow each other or create posts.

Getting Started

To run the project locally using Docker Compose, follow these steps:

Prerequisites

• Docker and Docker Compose installed on your machine.
• Ensure you have the required environment variables for services like PostgreSQL, MongoDB, Neo4j, Redis.

Setup

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/ebilsanta/social-network.git
   cd social-network

2. Set up environment variables such as service ports, database URLs, Kafka configurations and rename the .env.sample file to .env

3. Build and start the services with Docker Compose:

   docker-compose up --build

4. Access the backend APIs using the postman file provided.