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WhatsApp

Global Messaging Platform

2B+
Active Users
180+
Countries
100B+
Messages/Day
50
Engineers

Company Overview

WhatsApp revolutionized global communication by providing a simple, reliable messaging platform. Founded in 2009, WhatsApp now serves over 2 billion users worldwide with minimal infrastructure.

The company's technical approach using Erlang and efficient system design demonstrates how minimal resources can serve massive scale when architected correctly.

Business Model

  • Freemium model with premium features
  • Business API for enterprise customers
  • Acquired by Facebook for $19B in 2014
  • Focus on simplicity and reliability

Context

  • • Global messaging platform serving 2B+ users
  • • Erlang-based architecture with minimal infrastructure
  • • Actor model for massive concurrent connections

Patterns & Typical Choices

• API Gateway: rate-limits, auth, request shaping (e.g., Zuul/Envoy)
• Storage: metadata (KV/Doc), sessions (in-memory), search (inverted index), analytics (data lake)
• Messaging: queues vs streams; idempotency; outbox/CDC to avoid dual-writes
• Caching: edge CDN + service caches; stampede protection (locks, jittered TTLs)
• Observability: trace IDs across hops; RED/USE metrics with SLOs

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