I've seen a lot of people asking why BookMyShow struggled during events like the Coldplay concert, while platforms like Hotstar seem to manage massive traffic, especially during big cricket matches. To answer that, we need to understand this from a system design and infrastructure perspective—and it's not exactly a fair comparison.
Apples to Oranges: Read-heavy vs Write-heavy Systems
Hotstar and BookMyShow are fundamentally different in how they handle user interaction. Hotstar is read-heavy, where millions of users are simply streaming content (reading data). On the other hand, BookMyShow is write-heavy during high-demand events like concert ticket sales, with a surge of users writing data—attempting to buy tickets at the same time.
Consistency, Data Loss & Expectations
Another key difference is the expectation of consistency and data loss:
Hotstar: When a user streams a video, slight inconsistencies or minor data loss aren't catastrophic. The platform can handle the load by buffering, lowering stream quality temporarily, etc.
BookMyShow: For ticket sales (especially payments), there's zero tolerance for inconsistency or data loss. Losing transaction data or overbooking tickets can lead to serious financial issues and customer dissatisfaction.
During the Coldplay concert, BookMyShow faced extreme demand for limited inventory (tickets), leading to write-heavy traffic that stressed their system. In contrast, Hotstar scales to handle a massive number of read requests during cricket matches, where the infrastructure is optimized for real-time video delivery.
Both are successful platforms, but their system designs are built for very different kinds of traffic and failure modes. It's a great case to study if you're diving into system design—understanding the trade-offs of read-heavy vs write-heavy platforms is key.
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