I Built a Visual System Design Reference — Switch Any Architecture Between AWS, Azure, GCP & Open Source

8.2 relevance

Visual system design reference switching between cloud providers is directly actionable for platform engineers and architects.

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Why It Matters

For a solutions architect evaluating multi-cloud or vendor-neutral designs, this tool directly solves the mental translation tax between AWS S3 vs GCP Cloud Storage vs MinIO, and provides a reusable reference for interviews, team onboarding, or architecture reviews.

Key Takeaways

Bookmark system-design-explainer.vercel.app and use its cloud-switching feature to rapidly compare service mappings across AWS, Azure, GCP, and open-source stacks during your next architecture decision.

I Built a Visual System Design Reference — Switch Any Architecture Between AWS, Azure, GCP & Open Source

Summary

System Design Explainer is an interactive reference site that visualizes 36 real-world architectures (YouTube, Uber, etc.) and lets you switch any diagram between AWS, Azure, GCP, and open-source tooling with one click. It includes hop-by-hop request walkthroughs, component deep-dives, and concept explanations — all with auto-laid-out diagrams that stay consistent across cloud providers. Built by a developer frustrated with static, vendor-locked diagrams and scattered notes, the project is open-source and live on Vercel.

Author

amananandrai