DEV Community

CHINMAYA PRADHAN
CHINMAYA PRADHAN

Posted on

Day 5 of DevOps Journey: Designing the Database for the Social Media App

Over the past few days, I have been documenting my DevOps journey as I build a full-fledged Social Media Application from scratch. The idea is not only to develop the app but to gain a deep understanding of how DevOps fits into the lifecycle of modern applications, from development to deployment and maintenance.

Here’s what I’ve accomplished so far:

✅ Designed the complete UI/UX for the frontend
✅ Set up the backend framework using Node.js and Express.js
✅ Structured the project for scalability and modularity

Today, I moved on to an essential part of the application, the Database.

🧩 Why PostgreSQL?
When choosing the database for this social media platform, I opted for PostgreSQL. Here’s why:

  • Relational Model: Perfect for managing structured data like users, posts, comments, etc.
  • ACID Compliance: Ensures data integrity across all transactions.
  • Extensibility: Supports JSON, full-text search, and custom functions.
  • Community & Ecosystem: A widely supported, open-source option with excellent tooling.

🛠️ Database Architecture
The core components of any social media app involve user interactions, posts, comments, likes, notifications, and relationships (followers/following). Below is a simplified breakdown of the schema I designed:

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Users Table
Column -> Type -> Description
id-> UUID-> Primary Key
username-> VARCHAR-> Unique username
email-> VARCHAR-> User's email address
password-> VARCHAR-> Hashed password
profile_pic-> TEXT-> URL to profile picture
created_at-> TIMESTAMP-> Timestamp of registration

📝 Posts Table
Column-> Type-> Description
id-> UUID-> Primary Key
user_id-> UUID-> Foreign Key (users)
caption-> TEXT-> Post content
image_url-> TEXT-> Optional media
created_at-> TIMESTAMP-> Time of post creation

💬 Comments Table
Column-> Type-> Description
id-> UUID-> Primary Key
post_id-> UUID-> Foreign Key (posts)
user_id-> UUID-> Foreign Key (users)
text-> TEXT-> Comment text
created_at-> TIMESTAMP-> Time of comment creation

❤️ Likes Table
Column-> Type-> Description
user_id-> UUID-> Foreign Key (users)
post_id-> UUID-> Foreign Key (posts)
created_at-> TIMESTAMP-> Time of like action

🔔 Notifications Table (Future Scope)
The notification system will handle alerts for likes, comments, and new followers.

🔗 Relationships & Indexing
I ensured to:

  • Set up foreign key constraints to maintain referential integrity.
  • Add indexes on frequently queried fields like username, post_id, and user_id to boost performance.
  • Consider cascading deletes/updates where necessary (e.g., deleting a post also deletes its comments and likes).

🔧 Tools Used

  • PostgreSQL for database engine
  • pgAdmin for visualizing and testing schemas
  • Knex.js / Sequelize (TBD) for integrating with the Node.js backend

📌 Next Steps
Now that the database schema is in place, the next phase involves:

  • Connecting the backend (Express.js) to the PostgreSQL database
  • Building out the API endpoints for user registration, posting, commenting, etc.
  • Writing migration scripts and seeding dummy data for testing

🌟 Key Takeaways

  • A well-thought-out database schema is foundational to any scalable application.
  • PostgreSQL offers the perfect mix of structure and flexibility for social media-type apps.
  • Designing tables and relationships early saves hours of debugging later in the DevOps lifecycle.

Top comments (0)