Instagram Backend

A backend-focused project built to understand how modern social platforms are designed, scaled, and extended with real-time and AI-powered features.

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Tech Stack

• Node.js & Express for server-side logic
• MongoDB for data modeling and persistence
• Redis for caching and performance optimization
• Socket.IO for real-time chat and messaging
• Cloudinary for image storage and delivery

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Key Features

• Designed and implemented REST APIs for core social platform functionality
• Built a real-time chat system using WebSockets (Socket.IO)
• Added a Redis caching layer to reduce database load and improve response times
• Implemented an AI-powered Caption Generator:
  • Images are uploaded to Cloudinary
  • The image URL is passed to an LLM for processing
  • Captions are generated using constrained system prompts to ensure quality, tone, and length consistency
• Began frontend development to support core user flows, focusing on API integration and UI structure

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Key Learnings

• Backend architecture and API design for social platforms
• Real-time system integration using WebSockets
• Caching strategies for scalable backend performance
• Integrating AI workflows within traditional backend systems
• Controlling LLM outputs using system-level constraints

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Future Scope

• Implement a queue-based system for notifications and image processing to improve scalability and fault tolerance
• Add end-to-end encryption (E2EE) for one-to-one chat to enhance user privacy and security
• Complete and integrate the frontend for a full end-to-end experience
• Introduce background workers for AI and media-related tasks

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This project reflects a strong focus on learning through building, emphasizing scalable backend design, real-time communication, and forward-looking system architecture.