Building a successful education technology (EdTech) platform is challenging. For Bart Sterm, co-founder and Head of Technology at TutorMundi, the journey has been marked by continuous adaptation, efficient resource use, and a strategic tech stack that allowed the company to scale seamlessly.
TutorMundi, an EdTech app connecting students in Brazil with tutors, has relied on Meteor.js from the beginning. In a recent conversation with Gabs, our developer advocate, Bart shared insights into how Meteor's ecosystem and its simplicity have been instrumental in growing the platform while keeping development streamlined.
TutorMundi's origin: Meteor.js from the Start
TutorMundi's premise is simple: elementary to high school students use the app to ask questions and get answers from qualified tutors. Whether it's a math problem or an essay draft, students are connected with tutors within minutes, thanks to a community of handpicked, trained educators.
Bart joined in early 2017, shortly after the initial prototype was built using Meteor.js. The app's first version was functional but had its share of issues. "It was buggy and ugly, but people loved it," Bart says. Even as the platform grew, the app's core remained rooted in that initial prototype, built entirely on Meteor.
High productivity and low learning curve
While Bart had experimented with Meteor before joining TutorMundi, this was his first time using it in a production environment. Despite his lack of prior experience, Meteor quickly proved the right choice. He notes that one of its most significant advantages is that it allows TutorMundi to hire developers with various skill sets who quickly become productive on the platform- even without prior Meteor experience.
The integrated nature of Meteor, with Blaze, Cordova, and Galaxy, made it easier to keep the tech stack consistent. Bart explained, "We never hired a developer with Meteor experience, and we never needed to. Everyone picks it up pretty quickly. The whole ecosystem is simple, and it just works."
This simplicity has been vital in maintaining a lean and agile development team. For a long time, Bart was the sole developer at TutorMundi, managing everything from the backend to mobile development. The ability to write code once and deploy it across all platforms - thanks to Meteor's Cordova integration - was a lifesaver during the company's early growth phase.
Sticking with Blaze's Simplicity
One of the most notable aspects of TutorMundi's tech journey is its continued use of Blaze, Meteor's default UI framework, even as React has become the more dominant choice in the JavaScript ecosystem. "We've thought about migrating from Blaze to React several times, but we've never seen a strong need to," Bart explains. "Blaze is good enough for 90–95% of what we want to do."
While React has been integrated into certain app parts - especially where its advanced tools are needed - Blaze remains the go-to framework for most features. Bart acknowledges that while many teams might migrate entirely to React for that extra 10%, sticking with Blaze has allowed TutorMundi to maintain simplicity and speed, focusing on the core user experience.
Scaling with Meteor and Galaxy
As TutorMundi scaled, so did its technical needs. The platform now serves thousands of students and tutors, handling real-time communication, voice messages, and interactive whiteboards. Despite the increased complexity, Meteor has managed these challenges effectively, largely thanks to Galaxy, Meteor's cloud service.
Bart credits Galaxy with keeping TutorMundi running smoothly even when the team couldn't afford additional developers. Features like automatic scaling, container health checks, and easy rollbacks have been critical to the platform's reliability and growth.
TutorMundi has implemented several best practices to optimize scaling, including splitting its marketing site from the core app and using CDNs for static assets. Despite occasional bottlenecks - common in any growing platform - Meteor and Galaxy have kept technical scaling challenges to a minimum.
One of the most compelling reasons TutorMundi sticks with Meteor is its productivity advantage. As Bart points out, many features come ready-to-use in Meteor.js - like real-time functionality and user accounts - features that would otherwise require separate libraries or custom development.
"We've been able to develop quickly for several platforms with Cordova, and Galaxy takes care of the server infrastructure," Bart explains. The seamless integration between Meteor and Galaxy allows TutorMundi to focus on building features, not managing infrastructure, making the stack particularly appealing for lean teams.
Final Thoughts: Why Meteor?
Bart wholeheartedly recommends Meteor.js and Galaxy to other startup founders and developers. TutorMundi's success is a testament to the power of a well-integrated, easy-to-use tech stack. Meteor's real-time capabilities and Galaxy's reliable infrastructure have allowed the platform to grow without being bogged down by technical complexity.
For teams looking to stay agile, productive, and scalable, TutorMundi's journey clearly demonstrates why Meteor remains a powerful choice for building modern web and mobile applications. Try Meteor.js today!
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