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Basic System Component · Easy

Design a URL Shortening Service like Bitly

Mini Map

Drag a component from the left onto the canvas

Scenario brief

Goal

Design a Bitly-style URL shortener: turn a long URL into a short link, and redirect when that short link is opened.

Functional requirements

  • Create: long URL → short code / short URL.
  • Redirect: open short URL → 301/302 to the long URL.
  • Custom aliases and click analytics are out of scope for this Easy canvas.

Non-functional requirements

  • Redirects must be very fast (this is the hot path).
  • Short → long mappings must survive restarts (durable storage).
  • System should stay available when traffic spikes on popular links.

Scale assumptions

Assume ~100M new links/month and ~10× more redirects than creates. Design first for redirects.

Your canvas task

Draw create + redirect at high level: how traffic enters, where mappings live, and how redirects stay fast.

Capacity check (optional)

Optional — 2 quick estimates from the scale above. Skip anytime; skipping does not fail you, it only skips a small bonus.

1.~100M new links per month. About how many creates per second on average?

2.Redirects ≈ 10× creates. If creates are ~40/s, about how many redirects/s?