Is this a video course?

No. This is an interactive, slide-based learning platform. Each lesson has rich text, animated diagrams, live code editors, and quizzes. You learn by reading, interacting, and doing, not by watching videos passively.

How long do I have access?

Forever. Both pricing tiers are one-time payments with lifetime access. This includes all current 766 lessons and any future content we add.

What level of experience do I need?

None. We start from absolute basics like 'What is latency?' and build up to distributed consensus protocols. The Foundation level assumes zero prior knowledge of system design.

How much does the system design course cost?

7.99 US dollars for lifetime access globally, or 499 Indian rupees for lifetime access in India. One-time payment, no subscription, no hidden fees. 11 lessons are free with no signup required.

What technologies are covered?

Everything from DNS and load balancers to Kubernetes, Kafka, distributed databases, consensus protocols, stream processing, security architecture, and observability. We cover principles and real-world implementations used at Netflix, Google, Amazon, Uber, Stripe, and more.

Is this useful for system design interview preparation?

Yes. The lessons are structured around the exact topics asked in system design interviews at FAANG and top-tier companies. Interactive diagrams help you practice whiteboard-style explanations. Covers everything from URL shortener design to distributed payment systems.

How is this different from ByteByteGo or Educative?

766 interactive lessons (4x more than most competitors), 16 different diagram types that build step by step, real production examples from Netflix, Google, Amazon, Uber, and Stripe, and lifetime access for a one-time payment of $7.99 instead of annual subscriptions costing 100 to 200 dollars per year.

What is the key difference between read-through and cache-aside?

In read-through, the cache fetches from the database on a miss; in cache-aside, the application does, The fundamental difference is who handles cache misses. In cache-aside, the application detects the miss, queries the database, and populates the cache. In read-through, the cache itself handles the miss, it queries the database using a configured loader function, stores the result, and returns it to the application.

Why doesn't Redis support read-through natively?

Redis is a pure key-value store with no built-in mechanism to query external databases, Redis is a general-purpose key-value store. It doesn't have a concept of a 'loader function' or 'data source', it just stores and retrieves values. To get read-through behavior with Redis, you need an application-level wrapper (like Spring Cache) that adds the loader logic on top of Redis.

A CDN like CloudFront can be considered a read-through cache because:

Users request content from the CDN, which transparently fetches from the origin on a miss, A CDN is architecturally identical to a read-through cache: the client talks to the CDN (cache), the CDN checks if it has the content, and on a miss, it fetches from the origin server (database), caches the result, and returns it. The client never talks to the origin directly, the CDN handles everything transparently.

Read-Through Cache

Name: System Design Masterclass
Availability: InStock

in Caching Strategies

This lesson is part of the full System Design Masterclass. Unlock it along with 765 other lessons for a one-time payment.

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India

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Foundation lessons free, try before you buy

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“The interactive diagrams alone are worth way more than the price.”

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All 766 interactive lessons

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