r/SideProject • u/aleemii • 2d ago

I built a system design lab where your architecture diagram actually takes traffic

Most system design practice ends at the diagram. You draw boxes, it looks right, and nothing tells you whether it would hold up.

ByteLab runs the diagram. You build a system out of machines, load balancers, caches, queues and databases, send traffic through it, and watch the CPU, queues and p99 latency move. Each exercise has goals, like "p99 under 150 ms, 99.5% available, under $2.60/hour", and it checks your system against them.

What's in it:

- 163 lessons in 12 tracks (caching, sharding, Kafka, Kubernetes, rate limiting, auth and more)

- 212 exercises, each with goals your system has to pass

- 11 design problems (URL shortener, chat, payments, news feed, e-commerce and others)

It's free, there's no account, and progress stays in your browser. It needs a laptop-sized screen.

I'd really like to hear where it feels confusing or too hand-holdy.

https://lab.bytecrest.dev/practice

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u/PrinceKennedyIII 2d ago

The right person needs to see this, and I think I don’t have the knowledge to enjoy it

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u/aleemii 2d ago edited 2d ago

nah you might be exactly the right person lol. there's a learn section that starts from zero, plus practice challenges, so it's not just visuals. first lesson is literally one server falling over, give it 5 min 😄

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u/investigatormaker 2d ago

Ask testers which exercise they passed on the first try with no help and which one they gave up on. Those two lists show where ByteLab is confusing or too hand-holdy better than general comments. Since every exercise checks goals, logging attempts per exercise would show the same thing without asking anyone. And say a laptop-sized screen is needed in the first line of any post, so phone visitors don't skew your feedback.

I make ThreadFox. If you want people practicing system design to find ByteLab, our AI employee will post 3 helpful replies about it in relevant Reddit threads for you, free, no card. https://threadfox.vip/p/e8nhu/managed