What happens when you blend the excitement of friendships with the intrigue of rivalries? You get Friniemy—a fresh, engaging social media platform designed to foster genuine connections through fun, gamified interactions while putting privacy first.
🎯 The Vision
Social media has become predictable. The same feeds, the same interactions, the same lack of genuine connection. I wanted to create something different—a platform where young adults could discover who's really interested in them, compete playfully with friends, and share moments without sacrificing privacy.
Friniemy isn't just another social app. It's a gamified social experience where every interaction matters, every view counts, and authenticity is rewarded.
✨ What Makes Friniemy Different
💘 Crush Match System
Ever wondered if someone likes you back? With Friniemy's secret crush matching, you can mark someone as your "crush"—and if they do the same, you both get notified. It's like a mutual confession system that makes connections exciting and risk-free.
🌟 Aura System & Leaderboards
Your social presence has value. The Aura system quantifies your popularity through endorsements, comments, and views—even split by gender interactions for nuanced insights. Compete on location-based leaderboards to see who's trending in your city or country.
👀 Who Viewed You
Curiosity satisfied. See who's been checking out your profile and posts (with their consent, of course). It adds a layer of intrigue to every interaction—knowing someone took the time to look at your content.
💬 Anonymous Messages
Sometimes you want to say something without revealing who you are. Send anonymous messages to anyone, sparking conversations that might never happen otherwise. Secret confessions, honest feedback, or just mysterious fun.
🚫 Set as Ex
Blocking someone shouldn't be awkward. "Set as Ex" is our playful take on blocking—hide their content, stop interactions, and move on with a smile.
🛠️ The Tech Behind the Magic
Building a social platform that handles real-time interactions, media sharing, and privacy controls at scale requires serious engineering. Here's what powers Friniemy:
Backend Architecture
- NestJS - Enterprise-grade Node.js framework for scalable APIs
- PostgreSQL - Relational data for users, friendships, and reactions
- MongoDB - Document storage for posts, media metadata, and flexible content
- Redis - Real-time online status, typing indicators, and caching
- Bull Queues - Background job processing for media and notifications
Real-Time Features
- WebSockets - Instant messaging, notifications, and live updates
- Redis Pub/Sub - Scalable event broadcasting across servers
Media Infrastructure
- Cloudflare R2 - S3-compatible storage with global CDN
- Sharp - High-performance image processing
- FFmpeg - Video and audio transcoding
- Dual-Bucket Architecture - Privacy-enforced storage separation
🔐 Privacy-First Architecture
One of my proudest achievements with Friniemy is the dual-bucket media architecture. Traditional social platforms often rely on application-level privacy checks that can be bypassed. We took a different approach:
The Problem
When you add a custom domain to cloud storage, files become publicly accessible. Anyone with a URL could access "private" content—a major security flaw.
Our Solution
Public Bucket (cdn.friniemy.com)
- Open posts served via CDN
- Permanent URLs, cached globally
- Lightning-fast delivery worldwide
Private Bucket (No custom domain)
- Friends-only and private content
- Cryptographically signed URLs with expiration
- 5-15 minute access windows
- Impossible to share or bypass
OPEN content → Public Bucket → Direct CDN URL (no expiration)
FRIENDS content → Private Bucket → Signed URL (15 min expiry)
PRIVATE content → Private Bucket → Signed URL (5 min expiry)
When users change post privacy, media automatically migrates between buckets in the background. Privacy isn't just enforced in code—it's enforced at the infrastructure level.
📊 System Architecture Overview
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ CLIENT LAYER │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Mobile App │ Web App │ Admin Dashboard │ WebSocket │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
│
▼
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ API GATEWAY (NestJS) │
├─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ Auth │ Rate Limiting │ Validation │ Logging │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
│
┌─────────────────────┼─────────────────────┐
▼ ▼ ▼
┌───────────────┐ ┌───────────────┐ ┌───────────────┐
│ PostgreSQL │ │ MongoDB │ │ Redis │
│ Relational │ │ Documents │ │ Cache │
└───────────────┘ └───────────────┘ └───────────────┘
🎨 Core Features
Content & Sharing
- Rich Posts - Text, photos, videos, captions, and hashtags
- Stories - Ephemeral 24-48 hour content with music overlays
- Highlights - Curated permanent collections on your profile
- Post Pinning - Showcase 1-3 favorite posts at the top
Social Connections
- Follow/Friend System - Unilateral follows or mutual friendships
- Real-Time Chat - Direct messaging with read receipts
- Reactions & Comments - Multiple emoji reactions and threaded discussions
- Last Interaction Time - See when friends last engaged with you
Discovery
- Explore Section - Trending hashtags and popular users
- Smart Search - Find users, hashtags, and content
- Who Searched for Me - Opt-in to see recent profile searches
Safety
- Reporting System - Auto-prioritized moderation queue
- Privacy Controls - Public, Friends-Only, or Private content
- Profile View Controls - Opt-in for tracking features
📱 Platform Status
Platform | Status |
|---|---|
Backend API | 🟢 In Development |
Mobile App | 🟡 Coming Soon |
Web App | 🟡 Coming Soon |
Admin Dashboard | 🟢 In Development |
🏗️ Engineering Challenges Solved
Signed URL Performance
Generating signed URLs for feeds with 50+ posts was taking 3+ seconds. Solution: Parallel generation with Promise.all() and smart batching reduced this to ~220ms—a 13x improvement.
Cache Invalidation at Scale
Privacy changes affected thousands of cached feeds. Solution: Targeted invalidation with staggered refresh prevents cache stampede while maintaining consistency.
Race Conditions in Privacy Migration
Rapid privacy changes caused files to end up in wrong buckets. Solution: Idempotent migrations with version tracking ensure data integrity even under concurrent modifications.
Video Processing Bottleneck
Large videos blocked the entire media queue. Solution: Priority queues with separate workers for images, videos, and audio—images process instantly regardless of video queue depth.
📚 Technical Blog Series
I'm documenting the entire journey of building Friniemy. The first post covers the media architecture in detail:
Building a Privacy-First Media Sharing System →
Upcoming posts in the series:
- Real-time Notifications at Scale: WebSockets, Redis Pub/Sub, and Bull Queues
- Dual-Database Strategy: Why We Use PostgreSQL AND MongoDB
- Building a Privacy-Aware Friend Recommendation System
- End-to-End Encryption for Direct Messages
🚀 What's Next
Friniemy is actively being developed. Here's what's on the roadmap:
- Beta Launch - Early access for waitlist subscribers
- AI Companion - Your digital friend for personalized interactions
- Audio Posts - Voice your thoughts in a new format
- Advanced Analytics - Deeper insights into your social presence
- Open API - Developer access for third-party integrations
💭 Why I'm Building This
Social media should bring people together, not just keep them scrolling. I wanted to create a platform where:
- Curiosity is rewarded - Know who's interested in you
- Privacy is default - Your content, your control
- Connections are real - Gamification that encourages genuine interaction
- Competition is fun - Leaderboards and aura that make engagement exciting
Friniemy is my vision of what social media should be—playful, private, and genuinely social.
Join 1,000+ people on the waitlist. Be among the first to experience where real friendships begin.