How to Optimize APIs for Better Performance

There’s something fascinating about how data travels behind the scenes.💭 Today’s class was all about fetching data from the backend using HTTP methods. We explored how frontend and backend communicate, how data moves through APIs & endpoints and how these requests shape the experience users interact with. It’s interesting to see how every click and display on a page is powered by structured exchanges happening quietly in the background. Each class makes the bigger picture clearer and reminds me how connected every piece of the web really is.🫰🏻

The Rise of Reactive Backends That Adapt in Real Time Imagine a world where your backend doesn’t just respond to requests — it reacts to changes in real time. Where your systems don’t wait for clients to ask for data… they push updates the instant something changes. Welcome to the age of Reactive Backends — a silent revolution that’s redefining how modern web apps are built. For decades, our web systems have relied on a simple model: Client asks → Server responds. It worked fine… until real-time experiences became the new normal. Google Docs (instant document sync) Instagram Live (real-time comments and reactions) Stock trading platforms (data updates every millisecond) The traditional backend simply can’t keep up with these expectations anymore. A Reactive Backend is not just faster — it’s smarter. reacts immediately. Here’s what sets it apart: Event-driven → It responds to changes, not requests. Stream-based → Continuous data flow instead of static responses. Scalable by design → Built to handle massive concurrent users. Imagine you’re https://lnkd.in/gJpFuhZa

The Rise of Reactive Backends That Adapt in Real Time Imagine a world where your backend doesn’t just respond to requests — it reacts to changes in real time. Where your systems don’t wait for clients to ask for data… they push updates the instant something changes. Welcome to the age of Reactive Backends — a silent revolution that’s redefining how modern web apps are built. For decades, our web systems have relied on a simple model: Client asks → Server responds. It worked fine… until real-time experiences became the new normal. Google Docs (instant document sync) Instagram Live (real-time comments and reactions) Stock trading platforms (data updates every millisecond) The traditional backend simply can’t keep up with these expectations anymore. A Reactive Backend is not just faster — it’s smarter. reacts immediately. Here’s what sets it apart: Event-driven → It responds to changes, not requests. Stream-based → Continuous data flow instead of static responses. Scalable by design → Built to handle massive concurrent users. Imagine you’re https://lnkd.in/gJpFuhZa

Schema or No Schema? One myth I used to believe: Document databases are “schema-less.” But here’s the truth I learned from DDIA Document and graph databases don’t enforce schema on write. BUT… your application almost always assumes a structure—it’s just checked at read time instead of write time. So the real question isn’t “Schema or no schema?” It’s when and where you enforce it. 💡 For fast-changing apps → schema-on-read can make iteration easier. 💡 For strict/regulated systems → schema-on-write keeps data clean. As backend engineers, we should be intentional about where the contract lives: in the DB, in the app, or both.

Developer's Diary 1 - System Design Journey We’ve all done it - fixed logic, refactored queries, yet the app is still slow. 😩 Our app slows down not because of bad code, but because it keeps asking the same question again and again. 🤯 Every time a user requests data, API hits the database, performs I/O, and waits. 🙄 But the truth is, most of that data was already fetched before. 🤔Why not remember it? That’s where caching comes in. ⚡ 😏The first request is a cache miss ❌ (DB does the work). 🤗The next one? A cache hit ✅ — instant response from memory. Caching keeps data closer, APIs faster, and most importantly users happier. And when paired with indexing (for faster lookup) and pagination (for lighter responses) it gives speed, scalability, and stability, all in one. 🚀 📄 Attaching my notes on caching types, eviction strategies, and how indexing + pagination complete the performance puzzle. 👉 Question for you: When your APIs start slowing down, what’s your first move? Cache, index, or paginate? #Caching #BackendDevelopment #Performance #Scalability #TechStory #DatabaseOptimization #Pagination #Indexing

𝟴 𝗟𝗮𝘁𝗲𝗻𝗰𝘆 𝗥𝘂𝗹𝗲𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗟𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴-𝗙𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗔𝗽𝗽𝘀 If your website has even a 500 ms delay, you can lose a significant chunk of your users... and a ton of revenue. Mitigate this with 8 rules for lightning-fast apps 👇 𝟭) 𝗖𝗮𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 • By storing frequently accessed data closer to the user, caches can significantly reduce the time it takes to retrieve that data. • A slow website makes people leave - a 100 ms delay in website load time
can hurt conversion rates by 7%! 𝟮) 𝗨𝘀𝗲 𝗗𝗮𝘁𝗮𝗯𝗮𝘀𝗲 𝗜𝗻𝗱𝗲𝘅𝗶𝗻𝗴 • Indexed rows allow us to locate the relevant data much faster. 𝟯) 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘁 𝗗𝗲𝗹𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆 𝗡𝗲𝘁𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸 (𝗖𝗗𝗡) • CDNs store copies of data at multiple locations worldwide to reduce the distance data must travel, thereby reducing latency. • Faster load times improve user satisfaction and can contribute to better search engine rankings. 𝟰) 𝗟𝗼𝗮𝗱 𝗕𝗮𝗹𝗮𝗻𝗰𝗶𝗻𝗴 • By distributing network or application traffic across multiple servers, load balancers improve response times and reducing latency. 𝟱) 𝗖𝗵𝗼𝗼𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗮𝗻 𝗔𝗽𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗿𝗶𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗗𝗮𝘁𝗮 𝗟𝗼𝗰𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 • For cloud services, choosing a data center that's physically closer to the majority of users can reduce latency. • If you are serving users in the US, pick your data center in San Francisco instead of Singapore. 𝟲) 𝗩𝗲𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹 𝗦𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 • Adding more memory, faster processing speed and more storage allows us to process requests faster. 𝟳) 𝗔𝘀𝘆𝗻𝗰𝗵𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗼𝘂𝘀 𝗣𝗿𝗼𝗰𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 • Message queues allow us to handle computationally expensive tasks
in the background (asynchronous). 𝟴) 𝗗𝗮𝘁𝗮 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 • Compressing data reduces the size of the data packets, which decreases the time it takes to transfer those packets. --- Get our full technical guide today -> https://lnkd.in/eR45yE4f

💡 100 Days of Posting Challenge – Day 48 Fast apps win users. Slow apps lose them. At Coding Hatch, we use caching strategies to: ✅ Serve data instantly ✅ Reduce database and API strain ✅ Improve reliability during traffic spikes Caching is one of the simplest, yet most powerful ways to scale performance. 👉 For our community: Do you think most businesses underestimate how much caching can improve performance? #100DaysOfPosting #CodingHatch #Caching #Performance #Optimization #WebDevelopment #SoftwareEngineering

Serving the World: Why CDNs Are Essential for Global Audiences You can build a great web app. You can write clean backend logic. You can optimize your database queries. But if your users are far from your server, your site will still feel slow. The reason is not your stack. It is physics. A request has to travel from the user’s device to your server through multiple internet hops. If the server is in Europe and the user is in Australia, the request must cross oceans and networks. Even if your API responds in ten milliseconds, the round trip might take three hundred milliseconds purely because of distance. Multiply that for every script, image and stylesheet. The page now feels heavy even if it is light. This is where a CDN steps in. A Content Delivery Network is a system of servers distributed across different parts of the world. Instead of hosting your content in one location, a CDN copies your static assets to many smaller servers called edge nodes. When a user requests your site, the browser connects to the closest edge node rather than your or https://lnkd.in/gS2fPcpc

Most teams test in staging. The best teams test in production — silently. 🕵️ That’s where Shadow Reads come in — the secret weapon behind zero-downtime migrations. Here’s how it works: Every live query is silently duplicated — same SQL, same parameters — and executed on the new database. The app compares results in the background. Users never notice a thing. But the mismatches tell the real story: ⚡ Timezones that behave differently ⚡ Sorting that changes because of collation ⚡ NULLs silently turning into defaults ⚡ Encoding quirks that no test suite catches Lesson: Shadow traffic isn’t optional — it’s how you catch invisible data drift before your customers do. Because in production, “it works” isn’t enough. It has to work exactly the same. #SystemDesign #DatabaseMigration #Observability #BackendEngineering

Reducing latency isn’t magic, it’s method. Over the years, I’ve realized there are a few key areas that, if optimized, can make your app blazingly fast. Here’s my quick 80% checklist: ⚡ Database indexing done right ⚡ Compressing payloads before sending ⚡ Grouping multiple small requests ⚡ Using a CDN for static assets ⚡ Adding a load balancer ⚡ Scaling vertically when needed ⚡ Implementing proper caching ⚡ Using connection pooling ⚡ Queuing background tasks ⚡ Choosing efficient data serialization That pretty much covers most latency reduction techniques I use. But I’m sure there are more tricks out there, what’s the one optimization you always rely on? #PerformanceOptimization #BackendEngineering #Scalability #SoftwareDevelopment #WebPerformance #LearnWithNayan Credits: https://lnkd.in/d6fCEgBr