Single Server, Global Reach: Running a Worldwide Marketplace on Bare Metal in a Cloud-Dominated World

With nine million users, Chrono24 rejected the cloud. They run their global marketplace on a single bare-metal server, and it's ten times cheaper.

#1about 3 minutes

Scaling a global marketplace with a small team

Chrono24 serves nine million monthly active users with a product and tech team of 130 people by focusing on core engineering principles.

#2about 4 minutes

Why running on bare metal is cheaper than cloud

Cloud computing introduces significant costs and operational complexity, especially with microservices, which can make debugging distributed systems incredibly difficult.

#3about 6 minutes

Adopting guiding principles for simple and boring technology

Three core principles—Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS), using boring/proven technology, and deeply understanding your tools—help reduce complexity and improve system reliability.

#4about 10 minutes

How an in-memory caching layer enables massive scale

An ultra-fast in-memory caching layer using Data Access Objects (DAOs) and slices allows a single server to handle over 43,000 read requests per minute.

#5about 4 minutes

Using a hybrid approach with targeted cloud services

Cloud services are used strategically to solve specific problems, such as S3 for image storage, Lambdas for image processing, and AWS for machine learning tasks.

#6about 4 minutes

The trade-offs between cost, simplicity, and flexibility

A bare-metal monolith offers significant cost savings and operational simplicity but suffers from a lack of flexibility and creates a single point of failure during deployments.

#7about 10 minutes

Reframing the technical debt dilemma for continuous improvement

Technical debt is not a binary choice against feature development but an opportunity to improve the system's structure while adding new functionality.

#8about 8 minutes

Evolving a monolith using domain-driven design

The Strangler Fig pattern and Domain-Driven Design (DDD) are used to incrementally refactor the monolith into a modular system with clear boundaries and ownership.

#9about 2 minutes

Key takeaways for fighting complexity in large systems

Building a scalable system requires a constant fight against complexity through clear principles, a supportive culture, and automated architectural enforcement.