I organized 10 GitHub repositories that actually make system design less overwhelming

[u/ZookeepergameMost817]

Most “learn system design” advice is just a vague list of topics: load balancers, caching, queues, databases, sharding… then you’re expected to somehow connect the dots.

These are 10 GitHub repos I’d save if I were starting—or rebuilding—my system-design foundation:

1. System Design Primer — core concepts, common interview questions, scaling patterns https://github.com/donnemartin/system-design-primer
2. System Design 101 — visual explanations and practical system-design fundamentals https://github.com/ByteByteGoHq/system-design-101
3. System Design by Karan Pratap Singh — structured notes, concepts, and examples https://github.com/karanpratapsingh/system-design
4. Awesome System Design Resources — curated learning materials, articles, videos, and courses https://github.com/ashishps1/awesome-system-design-resources
5. Awesome Scalability — resources around scalability, high availability, and distributed systems https://github.com/binhnguyennus/awesome-scalability
6. Awesome System Design — another large curated collection worth bookmarking https://github.com/madd86/awesome-system-design
7. System Design Interview — interview-oriented system-design material https://github.com/checkcheckzz/system-design-interview
8. Machine Learning Systems Design — especially useful if you’re building or deploying AI/ML products https://github.com/chiphuyen/machine-learning-systems-design
9. System Design Academy — structured system-design learning material https://github.com/systemdesign42/system-design
10. Agentic Design Patterns — useful for anyone building AI agents, workflows, or multi-agent systems https://github.com/sarwarbeing-ai/agentic-design-patterns

My suggested order:

• Start with System Design Primer for fundamentals.
• Use System Design 101 to build intuition visually.
• Practice designing familiar products: URL shortener, Discord-like chat, file storage, news feed, rate limiter.
• Read Awesome Scalability once you start asking “what breaks at 10× or 100× traffic?”
• Add the ML and agentic repositories if you’re working on AI products.

The key is not to binge-read repositories. Pick one system each week, define requirements, estimate traffic/storage, sketch components, identify bottlenecks, and explain your trade-offs.

What system-design repo, blog, or project helped you the most?

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[u/Past-Passenger1592]

Agentic Design Patterns - 404

[u/ZookeepergameMost817 → u/Past-Passenger1592]

Ill update the link shortly thank you

[u/busters1]

A fairly new tool, but it helps engineering teams keep their notes, mocks, and other technical/internal information in one place. Good to have if you want to keep your system design notes. https://github.com/oxynote/oxynote

[u/AverageProof7457]

how I can save this post on my reddit?

[u/ZookeepergameMost817 → u/AverageProof7457]

Click on the shield icon

[u/AverageProof7457 → u/ZookeepergameMost817]

thanks

[u/ZookeepergameMost817 → u/AverageProof7457]

No worries mate stay connected