Distributed Social Networking Platform

A LinkedIn-like social network built using Spring Boot microservices, Kafka, and an API Gateway.

Core Features

• Authentication with JWT
• Post creation and interactions (likes)
• Connection management using Neo4j
• Event-driven notifications using Kafka
• API Gateway for centralized routing
• Service discovery using Eureka

Architecture

System Overview

Service Interaction Flow

Database Design

Tech Stack

Backend Java   Spring Boot   Kafka	Databases PostgreSQL   Neo4j
Cloud & DevOps Docker   Kubernetes	Observability ELK Stack   Zipkin

Design Highlights

• Each service owns its database (no shared schema)
• Kafka enables loose coupling and async workflows
• Neo4j is used for efficient relationship queries
• Services are independently scalable

Why this project

Built to understand how real distributed systems are designed, how services communicate, and how systems scale in production environments.