Scalability Basics (Vertical vs Horizontal) — Roadmap Step & Resources
Scaling up (bigger machines) vs scaling out (more machines) and their trade-offs
- Level: beginner
- Estimated time: 1 days
- Roadmap: System Design
Before this step
Interview questions
- When would you choose vertical scaling over horizontal scaling?
Study resources
- System Design BASICS: Horizontal vs. Vertical Scaling (Video) — Gaurav Sen's widely-watched explanation of scaling up vs scaling out.
- Scalability (Article) — The System Design Primer's dedicated section on horizontal vs vertical scaling.
- The Twelve-Factor App (Article) — The canonical methodology for building deployable, scalable, production-ready web applications.
Part of
- Core System Design Concepts — section
- System Design roadmap — the full learning path