Understand architecture, visually
Interactive diagrams, real-world adoption data, and honest trade-offs for the architecture patterns, infrastructure concepts, and networking fundamentals every developer should know.
Architecture Patterns
Clean Architecture, Microservices, CQRS, Event Sourcing, DDD — each with interactive diagrams and real adoption data.
Explore →⬡Infrastructure
Containers, Kubernetes, Service Mesh, Load Balancing — how modern apps are deployed and operated.
Explore →☁Cloud Design
Cloud-native principles, serverless, and multi-cloud strategies with real cost/performance trade-offs.
Explore →⟳Networking
OSI model, DNS, CDN, and load balancing — the network layer every developer should understand.
Explore →Where each pattern lives in the stack
Patterns operate at different levels — from code structure to global networking.
Each pattern operates at a different level of the stack. Click a level to see which patterns live there.
Featured principles
The patterns most used in production systems today.
Clean Architecture
Organise code into concentric dependency rings so business logic never depends on frameworks, databases, or UI.
Microservices Architecture
Decompose an application into small, independently deployable services that communicate over a network.
Circuit Breaker
Automatically stop calling a failing service to give it time to recover — preventing cascading failures across distributed systems.
Event-Driven Architecture
Services communicate by producing and consuming events asynchronously through a central event bus or message broker.
Kubernetes Orchestration
Automate the deployment, scaling, and self-healing of containerised applications across a cluster of nodes.
CDN Architecture
Serve content from edge nodes geographically close to users, drastically reducing latency and origin load.
How real systems combine patterns
Production architectures are never one pattern — they're a deliberate stack of complementary decisions. Click any card to see how the components connect.
Where these patterns run in production
Real companies, real usage — not just textbook examples.
- →700+ independent microservicesMicroservices Architecture
- →Hystrix circuit breakers everywhereCircuit Breaker
- →Kafka-powered event streamsEvent-Driven Architecture
- →Two-pizza teams → microservicesMicroservices Architecture
- →Saga-based order processingSaga Pattern
- →API Gateway for all trafficAPI Gateway
- →Kubernetes from Borg internalsKubernetes Orchestration
- →Service mesh via IstioService Mesh
- →Cloud-native architecture at scaleCloud-Native Architecture
- →330+ CDN PoPs globallyCDN Architecture
- →L3/L4 + L7 DDoS via OSI layersOSI Model
- →Anycast DNS at 1T+ queries/dayDNS Resolution
Draw your own architecture
Sketch diagrams with pre-built architecture shapes — services, databases, queues, gateways, and more. Save up to 20 canvases in your browser and export as PNG or JSON.
Everything you need to understand a pattern
Interactive visualization
Animated diagrams — not static images. Click, step through, and explore how each pattern works at runtime.
Popularity rating
1–5 star industry adoption score. Know which patterns are everywhere and which are niche.
Honest trade-offs
Every pattern has a cost. Pros and cons written for real decisions, not textbook completeness.
When to use (and not)
Explicit guidance on where a pattern shines and where it's overkill or wrong.
Real-world examples
Netflix, Amazon, Google — where each pattern actually runs, with context about why.
Related patterns
Patterns connect. Understand how Clean Architecture, DDD, CQRS, and Event Sourcing form a coherent whole.