#02URL Shortener
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WorkflowCanvas
Bitly logoBitly System
EasyFundamentals
20–30 min

URL Shortener

Build a high-performance URL shortening service like TinyURL or Bitly that generates 7-character aliases, handles 100:1 read-to-write ratios, and caches hot redirect lookups.

Scale & Traffic100M URLs/month · 10B redirects/month
Monthly Cloud Budget$800/month
Latency Target (P99)< 50ms Realtime SLA
Availability SLA99.99% Multi-AZ Active
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System Requirements

  • Generate unique, non-predictable 7-character shortened URLs
  • Redirect user within 15ms latency p99
  • High availability: 99.99% uptime with read-heavy optimization
  • Analytics telemetry on click counts and geographic origins

Graded Constraints

01Monthly infrastructure cost under $800/month
02Must include an in-memory cache (Redis / Memcached) for top 20% hot URLs
03Relational or NoSQL database with secondary indexing for fast lookups
04Load balancer routing traffic to redundant backend nodes

Ready to design?

Open this challenge in the interactive system design playground and satisfy all architecture constraints.

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URL Shortener — System Design Problem | Mimir Nest