Build This, Not That!

Smart Architecture Choices for Cloud Engineers

See side-by-side comparisons of the right way vs. wrong way to build common applications on AWS, with real cost data, failure stories, and migration paths.

Choose Your App Type

Category

Difficulty

Platform

Showing 20 app types

AWS

Intermediate

E-commerce Platform

Web Application

Online shopping platform with catalog, cart, and checkout

✅ Right:Event-driven microservices with caching and CDN

❌ Wrong:Single EC2 with everything, no caching, no CDN, tight coupling

AWS

Advanced

SaaS Application (Multi-tenant)

Web Application

Multi-tenant SaaS platform with tenant isolation

✅ Right:Proper tenant isolation with Aurora Serverless and ECS Fargate

❌ Wrong:Shared database without isolation, no scaling, single region

AWS

Intermediate

Mobile Backend (iOS/Android)

Mobile Application

Backend API for mobile apps with auth and push notifications

✅ Right:Serverless with managed auth and push notifications

❌ Wrong:EC2 monolith, no auth service, polling instead of push

AWS

Advanced

Real-time Analytics Platform

Data & Analytics

Streaming analytics platform for real-time insights

✅ Right:Event-driven streaming with Kinesis and serverless processing

❌ Wrong:Batch processing on EC2, expensive database queries, no streaming

AWS

Advanced

Video Streaming Platform

Media & Entertainment

Video hosting and streaming with transcoding

✅ Right:Serverless transcoding with global CDN delivery

❌ Wrong:EC2 transcoding, no CDN, origin serving videos directly

AWS

Advanced

IoT Data Pipeline

IoT & Data Processing

IoT device data ingestion and processing pipeline

✅ Right:IoT Core with streaming and time-series database

❌ Wrong:Direct database writes, no buffering, relational DB for time-series

AWS

Beginner

Serverless API

Backend Services

Simple REST API with serverless architecture

✅ Right:Fully serverless with auto-scaling and pay-per-use

❌ Wrong:EC2 always-on, no auto-scaling, relational DB for simple CRUD

AWS

Advanced

Machine Learning Platform

AI & Machine Learning

ML model training and deployment platform

✅ Right:Managed ML with automated pipelines and versioning

❌ Wrong:EC2 with manual GPU management, no model versioning, no pipeline

AWS

Intermediate

Content Management System

Web Application

Content management system with media handling

✅ Right:ECS with caching layers and CDN for media

❌ Wrong:Single EC2, no caching, no CDN, no read replicas

AWS

Advanced

Data Lake & ETL

Data & Analytics

Data lake with ETL pipelines for analytics

✅ Right:S3-based data lake with serverless ETL and querying

❌ Wrong:EC2 with expensive databases, no partitioning, manual ETL

AWS

Advanced

Microservices Architecture

Backend Services

Distributed microservices architecture

✅ Right:ECS/EKS with service mesh and database per service

❌ Wrong:Monolith split into chatty services, shared database, no discovery

AWS

Intermediate

Image Processing Pipeline

Media & Entertainment

Automated image processing and transformation

✅ Right:S3 events trigger Lambda for async processing with Rekognition

❌ Wrong:EC2 polling S3, synchronous processing, no job queuing

AWS

Advanced

Social Media Platform

Web Application

Social networking platform with feeds and media

✅ Right:ECS with multi-layer caching and async job processing

❌ Wrong:Relational DB for everything, no caching, synchronous operations

AWS

Intermediate

Booking/Reservation System

Web Application

Reservation system with availability and booking

✅ Right:Serverless with DynamoDB transactions and event-driven notifications

❌ Wrong:Relational DB with pessimistic locking, no queue for notifications

AWS

Intermediate

File Storage & Sharing

Storage & Sharing

Cloud file storage and sharing like Dropbox

✅ Right:S3 for storage, CDN for delivery, RDS for metadata

❌ Wrong:EC2 with local storage, no CDN, database storing file content

AWS

Advanced

Chat/Messaging Application

Real-time Communication

Real-time chat and messaging platform

✅ Right:WebSocket API with DynamoDB and caching for performance

❌ Wrong:HTTP polling, EC2 with in-memory state, no message queuing

AWS

Intermediate

Batch Processing Jobs

Background Processing

Scheduled batch processing and ETL jobs

✅ Right:Event-driven with Step Functions orchestration and retry logic

❌ Wrong:Cron on single EC2, no retry logic, no monitoring, manual scaling

AWS

Beginner

REST API with Authentication

Backend Services

REST API with user authentication and authorization

✅ Right:Managed auth with API Gateway rate limiting and versioning

❌ Wrong:EC2 with custom auth, no rate limiting, no API versioning

AWS

Beginner

Blog/News Platform

Web Application

Blog or news publishing platform

✅ Right:Static site generation with CDN and edge functions

❌ Wrong:EC2 with WordPress, no caching, database for every page view

AWS

Advanced

Gaming Leaderboard/Matchmaking

Gaming

Gaming leaderboard and matchmaking system

✅ Right:Redis for leaderboards, DynamoDB for persistence, async matchmaking

❌ Wrong:Relational DB with complex queries, no caching, synchronous processing

What You'll Get

💰 Real Cost Data

Actual monthly and yearly costs showing what the wrong way costs in dollars, not just performance.

⚠️ Common Pitfalls

Top mistakes when building each app type, so you can avoid expensive errors before they happen.

🔄 Migration Paths

Already built it wrong? Step-by-step guides to migrate to the right architecture without downtime.