#15WhatsApp 1-on-1 & Group Chat
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HardDistributed Systems
45–60 min

WhatsApp 1-on-1 & Group Chat

Design an end-to-end encrypted instant messaging platform supporting persistent connections, ephemeral delivery receipts, and efficient group message fan-out.

Scale & Traffic2 Billion users · 100 Billion messages/day
Monthly Cloud Budget$30,000/month
Latency Target (P99)< 50ms Realtime SLA
Availability SLA99.99% Multi-AZ Active

System Requirements

  • Sub-second real-time message delivery over flaky mobile connections
  • Delivery status receipts: Sent (✓), Delivered (✓✓), Read (blue ✓✓)
  • Store-and-forward offline buffer for disconnected devices
  • Group chats up to 1,024 members with decentralized fan-out

Graded Constraints

01Budget ceiling: $30,000/month
02Gateway cluster maintaining millions of concurrent WebSocket/TCP connections
03Fast session routing cache (Redis) mapping user IDs to active gateway servers
04Ephemeral message queue buffer (Kafka / Queue) for offline delivery
05Secure key store and user profile DB

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WhatsApp 1-on-1 & Group Chat — System Design Problem | Mimir Nest