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Open Netflix (Video Streaming) →Open Instagram Feed →

Netflix (Video Streaming) vs Instagram Feed

Netflix (Video Streaming)

Netflix (Video Streaming)

CDN-first, adaptive bitrate, recommendation.

Components (10)

  • Client
  • Open Connect
  • Zuul
  • Playback Service
  • Catalog Service
  • Recommendation
  • Kafka
  • S3
  • Cassandra
  • Encoding Pipeline

Headline numbers

  • Aggregate egress~1 Pbps
  • Library storage (all encodings)~5 PB
  • CDN cache hit rate target>95%
Instagram Feed

Instagram Feed

Fan-out on write vs read, ranking, CDN.

Components (10)

  • Mobile Client
  • CDN
  • API Gateway
  • Feed Service
  • Post Service
  • Kafka
  • Fan-out Worker
  • Redis
  • Postgres
  • S3

Headline numbers

  • Posts / sec (avg)~3,000/sec
  • Feed read QPS~58,000/sec
  • Fan-out writes / sec~600,000/sec

Key differences

Only in Netflix (Video Streaming)
None.
In both
  • Client
  • Cdn
  • Api Gateway
  • Service
  • Queue
  • Storage
  • Database
Only in Instagram Feed
  • Redis

Flow shape

Netflix (Video Streaming) flows
  • Open home screen5 steps
  • Start playback (CDN warm)5 steps
  • Start playback (CDN cold)5 steps
  • ⚠ CDN cache cold (regional outage)5 steps
  • ⚠ Catalog Service is down4 steps
Instagram Feed flows
  • Post a photo (fan-out on write)7 steps
  • Open feed (precomputed timeline)5 steps
  • ⚠ Fan-out Worker is down7 steps
  • ⚠ Timeline cache flushed (Redis restart)4 steps