EP155: The Shopify Tech Stack

This ByteByteGo newsletter issue explores Shopify’s tech stack, which powers over 600,000 merchants and handles 80,000 requests per second at peak. It also covers Single Sign-On (SSO), Java Virtual Threads, Redis vs. Memcached, and job opportunities in tech.

2. Core Technical Concepts/Technologies Discussed

• Shopify’s Tech Stack: Ruby, TypeScript, Lua, React, Ruby on Rails, MySQL, Redis, Memcached, Kubernetes
• Authentication: Single Sign-On (SSO)
• Concurrency: Java Virtual Threads
• Caching & Data Storage: Redis vs. Memcached
• DevOps & Infrastructure: Docker, GKE, BuildKite, ShipIt

3. Main Points

• Shopify’s Architecture:
  • Languages & UI: Ruby (backend), TypeScript (frontend), React (UI)
  • Backend: Ruby on Rails, Nginx, OpenResty, GraphQL
  • Data Layer: MySQL (primary DB), Redis (caching, real-time features), Memcached (key-value caching)
  • DevOps: Kubernetes (GKE), Docker, BuildKite (CI/CD), ShipIt (deployment automation)