2025 Systems Design Resources

Best books or Github repos for learning systems design skills for developers in 2025, I don't want courses.

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For developers seeking to master systems design in 2025, the most highly recommended resources are categorized into foundational books and specialized, community-vetted GitHub repositories. The consensus points to Martin Kleppmann's Designing Data-Intensive Applications as the seminal theoretical text and donnemartin/system-design-primer as the most popular, comprehensive open-source guideLearn how to design systems at scale and prepare for ...ycombinator +4. However, the field has diversified, with essential resources now available for specialized areas including Low-Level, Front-End, and Machine Learning System Design.

Foundational & General-Purpose Systems Design Books

These books are consistently recommended across numerous developer blogs and communities for providing the core principles of designing reliable, scalable, and maintainable systems13 Must-Read Books for Senior Developers & Software …dev +2.

Core Recommendations

Designing Data-Intensive Applications: The Big Ideas Behind Reliable, Scalable, and Maintainable Systems by Martin Kleppmann This is widely considered the most essential book for understanding modern data systemsLearn how to design systems at scale and prepare for ...ycombinator +3. It offers a deep, principled exploration of the pros and cons of various technologies for data storage and processing7 Best System Design Books [2025] - GeeksforGeeksgeeksforgeeks +1. Spanning over 600 pages, the book is praised for its comprehensive coverage of topics from storage engines and data models to distributed systems, replication, and batch/stream processingBest System Design Books - Hackrhackr +1. Its focus on fundamental principles over specific tools ensures its continued relevanceOne book that I believe all software engineers or aspiring engineers should read is the book “Designing Data-Intensive Applications” by Martin Kleppmann. It is by far the best book for learning and designing distributed systems. Is it still relevant in 2024? Yes it is. Why? Martin Kleppmann conversational style of writing this book makes it feels like he is talking in front of you. No hard vocabulary, sophisticated tech jargon, or perfect grammar. He doesn't tell you what technology you need to use to solve the problem. Technology will obsolete. Instead, he teach you the fundamental and the purpose behind the creation of those technology. Don’t be fooled by it looking like a textbook. Because it is more like a non-fiction about distributed systems. I learn about: 👉 Fundamental forms of databases 👉 How to think in terms of using each form of databases 👉 How to think about a single point of failure and resiliency in your system 👉 The real definition of ACID 👉 How the Unix philosophy influences a lot of modern data processing architecture This is also why I think this book has been one of the most popular books on system design. I took a break in 2020 from finishing this book due to burnout while working for a startup. I’m glad to pick up where I left off and I am determined to finish it. 𝗟𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗼𝗻 𝗟𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗱: Sometimes, the best way to explain complex knowledge is to make it as conversational as possible. Any other distributed systems or programming book that is similar to this? #buildinpublicx .
- 2025 Relevance & Critique: While the core concepts are timeless, the first edition was published in 2017 with examples that stop around 2016What I learned from the book Designing Data-Intensive ...techworld-with-milan +1. Consequently, it lacks coverage of newer trends like serverless computing, the evolution of cloud data warehouses, and the prominence of tools like Apache FlinkWhat I learned from the book Designing Data-Intensive ...techworld-with-milan . The author has acknowledged that MapReduce, featured prominently, is now largely obsolete. A second edition, co-authored with Chris Riccomini, is in development and scheduled for a January 2026 release to address these changesDesigning Data-Intensive Applications, 2nd Editionoreilly +1.
System Design Interview – An Insider’s Guide (Volumes 1 & 2) by Alex Xu These books are consistently ranked as essential resources for developers preparing for system design interviews at top tech companies7 Best System Design Books [2025] - GeeksforGeeksgeeksforgeeks +1. Beyond interview prep, they are valued for providing practical, real-world architecture solutions for systems like WhatsApp, YouTube, Google Maps, and Twitter, complete with clear diagrams and frameworks8 Must-Read Tech Books for 2025travis +1. The content is considered valuable for any developer seeking to understand how to architect systems, not just for those interviewing8 Must-Read Tech Books for 2025travis .
Fundamentals of Software Architecture: An Engineering Approach by Mark Richards & Neal Ford This book offers a comprehensive overview of software architecture, covering architectural characteristics, patterns, component determination, diagramming, and presentation techniques7 Best System Design Books [2025] - GeeksforGeeksgeeksforgeeks +1. It provides a thorough foundation for aspiring and current architectsTop System Design Books recommended by experts (2025 …mentorcruise .
Software Engineering at Google: Lessons Learned from Programming Over Time by Titus Winters, Tom Manshreck & Hyrum Wright This book gives an insider's view of Google's distinct engineering culture, methodologies, and tools7 Best System Design Books [2025] - GeeksforGeeksgeeksforgeeks . It provides valuable perspective on how to manage software development sustainably over time, making a codebase healthy and sustainableTop System Design Books recommended by experts (2025 …mentorcruise .

Classic & Complementary Reads

These books are frequently cited alongside the core recommendations and focus on timeless principles of software craftsmanship that are foundational to good system design.

Clean Architecture: A Craftsman's Guide to Software Structure and Design by Robert C. Martin ("Uncle Bob"): Focuses on software architecture principles to create maintainable and scalable systems, emphasizing clean code and separation of concernsBest System Design Books - Hackrhackr +1.
The Pragmatic Programmer: Your Journey to Mastery by Andrew Hunt & David Thomas: A classic offering practical advice for developers, covering topics from personal responsibility to career development and architectural techniquesLearn how to design systems at scale and prepare for ...ycombinator +2.
Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software by Eric Evans: Provides a framework for designing complex systems by aligning the software model with the real-world business domain9 Books every SENIOR SOFTWARE ENGINEER must read, and WHYyoutube +1.

Top-Tier GitHub Repositories for System Design

GitHub repositories offer practical, community-driven resources that complement the theoretical knowledge from books. They often provide real-world examples, interview preparation guides, and curated lists of learning materials8 Most Respected GitHub Repositories to Master System ...medium .

Encyclopedic Primers & Guides

These repositories offer comprehensive, text-based guides covering a wide breadth of system design topics.

Repository	Stars (Approx.)	Description & Focus
`donnemartin/system-design-primer`	315,000+	The most-starred and frequently recommended repository, considered "the bible of system design"donnemartin/system-design-primergithub +2. It provides a structured approach to learning large-scale system design, with detailed topic summaries (e.g., latency vs. throughput, caching), a step-by-step framework for interviews, and solution guides for designing well-known systems like Pastebin and Twitterdonnemartin/system-design-primergithub +1.
`karanpratapsingh/system-design`	37,400+	Structured as a sequential course, this repository is organized into five chapters that progress from fundamentals (networking, DNS, caching) to advanced concepts (rate limiting, geohashing, disaster recovery)karanpratapsingh/system-design \| DeepWikideepwiki +1. It concludes with practical case studies for designing services like Netflix, Uber, and WhatsAppkaranpratapsingh/system-design: Learn how to ...github +2.
`ByteByteGoHq/system-design-101`	75,300+	Created by Alex Xu (author of System Design Interview), this repository's core principle is "visual-first learning"ByteByteGoHq/system-design-101 \| DeepWikideepwiki . It explains complex topics using simple diagrams and concise text, covering a vast range of subjects from API design and databases to security and DevOpsByteByteGoHq/system-design-101 \| DeepWikideepwiki +2. It is often recommended as a good starting point for getting a high-level overview of concepts and learning correct terminologySystem Design 101ycombinator .

Specialized Design Disciplines

As the software field matures, "system design" has fractured into specialized domains. The following sections detail top-tier resources for developers focusing on low-level, front-end, or machine learning systems.

1. Low-Level Design (LLD) & Code-Level Patterns

Low-Level Design (LLD) focuses on the class-level design of a system, including object-oriented principles, design patterns, and the internal workings of specific components. It is distinct from High-Level Design (HLD), which deals with system architecture17 Best Free GitHub Repositories to Crack System …dev .

Recommended Books for LLD

Head First Design Patterns: Building Extensible and Maintainable Object-Oriented Software by Eric Freeman & Elisabeth Robson: A highly visual and engaging book that explains the significance of common software design patterns and the object-oriented principles behind them7 Best System Design Books [2025] - GeeksforGeeksgeeksforgeeks +1.
Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship by Robert C. Martin: Provides timeless principles for writing code that is readable, maintainable, and elegant9 Books every SENIOR SOFTWARE ENGINEER must read, and WHYyoutube +1.
Refactoring: Improving the Design of Existing Code by Martin Fowler: Teaches techniques to improve the design of existing codebases, a crucial skill for evolving systems9 Books every SENIOR SOFTWARE ENGINEER must read, and WHYyoutube +1.

Top GitHub Repositories for LLD

Repository	Stars (Approx.)	Description & Focus
`ashishps1/awesome-low-level-design`	8,200+	A curated repository aiming to be a one-stop solution for LLD17 Best Free GitHub Repositories to Crack System …dev +1. It organizes resources on OOP basics, SOLID principles, design patterns (creational, structural, behavioral), UML diagrams, and provides over 34 LLD interview problems with solutions, such as designing a parking lot or a vending machine17 Best Free GitHub Repositories to Crack System …dev +1.
`prasadgujar/low-level-design-primer`	7,200+	Focuses on preparing developers for LLD interview questions, with a dedicated topic tag on GitHubsystem-design-interview · GitHub Topics · GitHubgithub +3. It includes case study solutions for systems like Tic-Tac-Toe, a hotel booking system, and an elevator system17 Best Free GitHub Repositories to Crack System …dev .

2. Front-End System Design & Architecture

Front-end system design addresses challenges specific to the client side, such as UI component architecture, state management at scale, rendering performance, and building design systems.

Recommended Books for Front-End Design

Frontend Architecture for Design Systems by Micah Godbolt: Provides a blueprint for structuring large-scale, sustainable front-end projects, covering code, process, testing, and documentation✨ 10 Books For Every Software Engineer in 2025 - ...dev +1.
Building Micro-Frontends by Luca Mezzalira: A comprehensive guide to the architectural style of breaking down large front-end applications into smaller, independently manageable pieces. It introduces a decision framework for composing and routing micro-frontendsTop 10 Recommended Books for Frontend Engineersfrontendatscale +1.
Atomic Design by Brad Frost: Details a methodology for creating and maintaining robust design systems by breaking UIs down into fundamental "atoms" and composing them into larger "molecules" and "organisms"The 10 best design system booksmedium .

Top GitHub Repositories for Front-End Design

Repository	Stars (Approx.)	Description & Focus
`greatfrontend/awesome-front-end-system-design`	7,700+	A curated list of resources specifically for front-end system design interviews and learningfront-end-system-design · GitHub Topics · GitHubgithub . The repository aggregates high-quality guides and case studies for designing entire applications (e.g., Facebook News Feed, E-commerce sites) and individual UI components (e.g., Autocomplete, Image Carousel), with links to technical blogs from companies like Twitter, Facebook, and eBayhttps://github.com/greatfrontend/awesome-front-end-system-designecosyste .
(Various Handbooks)	N/A	Multiple platforms offer comprehensive handbooks and frameworks for approaching front-end design interviews, including the GreatFrontEnd Playbook (which uses the RADIO framework) and the FrontendLead HandbookFront End System Design Playbook: All-in-one Deep Divegreatfrontend +1.

3. Machine Learning (ML) System Design

This specialized field focuses on the unique challenges of building and deploying production-grade ML systems, including data pipelines, feature engineering, model serving, and MLOps.

Recommended Books for ML System Design

Designing Machine Learning Systems by Chip Huyen: Highly praised by industry veterans, this book provides a comprehensive and up-to-date guide on designing real-world ML systems, covering the entire lifecycle from project setup and data pipelines to serving and maintenanceNeed ML System Design Book? I Read Them ALLyoutube +1.
Machine Learning System Design Interview by Ali Aminian & Alex Xu: Authored by the creator of ByteByteGo, this book offers a structured, 7-step framework for solving ML system design problemsTop 5 Machine Learning System Design Interview Books ...medium . It features 10 real-world case studies (e.g., video search, ad click prediction) and over 200 diagramsTop 5 Machine Learning System Design Interview Courses ...wordpress .
Machine Learning Systems by various authors (mlsysbook.ai): An upcoming open-access textbook (2026) from a collaborative project that aims to bridge theory and practice, with accompanying labs and hardware kitsMachine Learning Systems - harvard-edge.github.iogithub +1. The associated GitHub organization already provides resourcesMachine Learning Systems Book · GitHubgithub .

Top GitHub Repositories for ML System Design

Repository	Stars (Approx.)	Description & Focus
`goku-kim/ML-System-Design-Case-Studies`	(Recent)	This repository addresses a common gap by aggregating over 300 real-world ML system design case studies from more than 80 companies, including Netflix, Airbnb, and DoorDash. It provides links to technical blogs and papers covering applications like recommendation systems and fraud detection学习机器学习系统设计时，我们总是在各种理论教程里打转，想找点真实公司的实战案例却很难找到。 ML System Design Case Studies 这个开源项目正好解决了这个问题，它汇集了来自 80+ 知名公司的 300+ 真实案例。包括 Netflix、Airbnb、DoorDash 等公司的详细技术博客和论文，涵盖推荐系统、搜索排序、欺诈检测等各个领域的 ML 应用。 GitHub：https://t.co/VUPa7sbo4P 主要内容： - 300+ 真实案例，覆盖科技、金融、电商、出行等多个行业 - 详细的技术实现描述，包含模型设计、评估标准和部署架构 - 按公司和应用场景分类整理，便于快速查找相关案例 - 涵盖计算机视觉、自然语言处理、推荐系统等各个 ML 领域 - 每个案例都标注了年份和简短描述，方便筛选想要学习大厂 ML 系统设计实践的 AI 开发者，该项目值得参考学习一下。x +1.
`GokuMohandas/Made-With-ML`	41,500+	A comprehensive open-source course on MLOps that covers the full ML product lifecycle, from design and CI/CD to monitoring10 GitHub repos to sleep with as an ai engineer covering ML systems, Agents, RAG, MLOps: 1. Machine Learning for Beginners by Microsoft → Start here if you’re brand new to ML. Covers basic ML concepts in Jupyter notebooks beginner-friendly and visual. 🔗 https://t.co/QCmnVn3jq5 2. Learn PyTorch for Deep Learning → A great repo to learn PyTorch - could be a bit outdated but the concepts still applies. 🔗 https://t.co/UPfckuV8En 3. Hands-on Large Language Models → This repo supports the Hands-On LLM book. Learn everything from basic language models to finetuning with real notebooks. 🔗 https://t.co/9yu5GOZfm3 4. AI Agents for Beginners → A fantastic beginner-friendly course to get started with AI agents. Free 11-lesson hands-on curriculum - no fluff, just code. 🔗 https://t.co/UYu7XpGkmS 5. Prompt Engineering Guide → One-stop-shop for prompt engineering. Guides, papers, lectures, and tons of curated examples. 🔗 https://t.co/8d6DO80UdB 6. LLM Course → Hands-on course covering the entire LLM lifecycle — design to deployment. Includes roadmaps + Colab notebooks. 🔗 https://t.co/ZAnkXXDVJQ 7. GenAI Agents → Great tutorials + code for building agent-based LLM systems. Covers everything from simple tool-using agents to advanced workflows. 🔗 https://t.co/ZlHqHvlKoz 8. RAG Techniques → One of the most comprehensive and dynamic collections of Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) tutorials available 🔗 https://t.co/jrxlazWEdp 9. Made With ML → Covers full ML product lifecycle: from design to CI/CD and monitoring. If you’re serious about building production-grade ML systems, this is gold. 🔗 https://t.co/vGeNeVx7cT 10. Designing Machine Learning Systems → Summaries + code + diagrams from the popular O’Reilly book. A must-read if you want to architect real-world ML pipelines. 🔗 https://t.co/JpQEDqrM7Y Credit to @shirin_kjam for the list 🤘🏻x +1. It is considered essential for those serious about building production-grade ML systems10 GitHub repos to sleep with as an ai engineer covering ML systems, Agents, RAG, MLOps: 1. Machine Learning for Beginners by Microsoft → Start here if you’re brand new to ML. Covers basic ML concepts in Jupyter notebooks beginner-friendly and visual. 🔗 https://t.co/QCmnVn3jq5 2. Learn PyTorch for Deep Learning → A great repo to learn PyTorch - could be a bit outdated but the concepts still applies. 🔗 https://t.co/UPfckuV8En 3. Hands-on Large Language Models → This repo supports the Hands-On LLM book. Learn everything from basic language models to finetuning with real notebooks. 🔗 https://t.co/9yu5GOZfm3 4. AI Agents for Beginners → A fantastic beginner-friendly course to get started with AI agents. Free 11-lesson hands-on curriculum - no fluff, just code. 🔗 https://t.co/UYu7XpGkmS 5. Prompt Engineering Guide → One-stop-shop for prompt engineering. Guides, papers, lectures, and tons of curated examples. 🔗 https://t.co/8d6DO80UdB 6. LLM Course → Hands-on course covering the entire LLM lifecycle — design to deployment. Includes roadmaps + Colab notebooks. 🔗 https://t.co/ZAnkXXDVJQ 7. GenAI Agents → Great tutorials + code for building agent-based LLM systems. Covers everything from simple tool-using agents to advanced workflows. 🔗 https://t.co/ZlHqHvlKoz 8. RAG Techniques → One of the most comprehensive and dynamic collections of Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) tutorials available 🔗 https://t.co/jrxlazWEdp 9. Made With ML → Covers full ML product lifecycle: from design to CI/CD and monitoring. If you’re serious about building production-grade ML systems, this is gold. 🔗 https://t.co/vGeNeVx7cT 10. Designing Machine Learning Systems → Summaries + code + diagrams from the popular O’Reilly book. A must-read if you want to architect real-world ML pipelines. 🔗 https://t.co/JpQEDqrM7Y Credit to @shirin_kjam for the list 🤘🏻x .
`khangich/machine-learning-interview`	11,300+	A guide specifically for preparing for machine learning interviews, covering system design alongside other topics like ML fundamentals and programmingTop 10 GitHub Repositories to Master AI, Machine ...turingpost +2.
`chiphuyen/machine-learning-systems-design`	(Varies)	The GitHub repository associated with Chip Huyen's book, which contains chapter summaries and notes, acting as a valuable companion resource to the text itselfchiphuyen/machine-learning-systems-designgithub +1.