DesiHub Tech Stack 2025: Building a Production-Ready Banking Platform with Go, Next.js, and Microservices

Deep dive into DesiHub's complete technology stack for building a scalable banking application serving 5,000+ daily users. Learn our architectural decisions, cost breakdowns ($300/month infrastructure), developer hardware specs, and why we chose Go + PostgreSQL + Next.js over alternatives. Includes microservices design, CI/CD pipelines, security implementation, and scaling from MVP to 500K users.

DesiHub Tech Stack 2025: Building a Modern Banking Platform

Published: November 20, 2025

We're excited to share DesiHub's complete technology stack as we embark on building a robust, scalable banking application designed to serve 5,000+ daily users with millions of requests. This article outlines our architectural decisions, tooling choices, and the reasoning behind them.

Executive Summary

DesiHub is building a modern banking platform with microservices architecture, focusing on security, scalability, and cost-effectiveness. Our stack leverages battle-tested open-source technologies combined with strategic paid services where they provide clear value.

Target Metrics:

5,000+ daily active users
Millions of API requests per day
99.9% uptime SLA
Sub-200ms API response times
Bank-grade security and compliance

Our Technology Decisions

Backend Architecture: Go + Microservices

We chose Golang as our primary backend language for several critical reasons:

Why Go?

Performance: Near C++ speeds with garbage collection
Concurrency: Native goroutines handle thousands of concurrent requests efficiently
Memory footprint: Significantly lower than Java or Node.js
Deployment: Single binary deployment simplifies operations
Banking industry adoption: Used by Monzo, Nubank, and American Express

Core Backend Stack:

Framework:      Gin (HTTP routing & middleware)
ORM:            GORM (PostgreSQL interactions)
Auth:           golang-jwt/jwt + go-guardian
Authorization:  Casbin (RBAC engine)
Validation:     go-playground/validator

Why Gin over alternatives? Gin provides the perfect balance of performance (40x faster than Martini) and developer experience. It's production-proven at companies like Xiaomi and Tencent.

Frontend: Next.js 14+ with App Router

Frontend Stack:

Framework:        Next.js 14 (React Server Components)
State Management: Simple Store + TanStack Query (React Query)
Styling:          Tailwind CSS + Shadcn/ui
Forms:            React Hook Form + Zod validation
Authentication:   NextAuth.js

Why This Combination?

Next.js gives us:

Server-side rendering for better SEO and initial load times
API routes for backend-for-frontend (BFF) pattern
Automatic code splitting and optimization
Built-in image optimization

TanStack Query eliminates complex state management for server data:

Automatic caching and background refetching
Optimistic updates for better UX
Reduced boilerplate compared to Redux/Redux-Saga

Shadcn/ui provides:

Copy-paste components (you own the code)
Built on Radix UI primitives (accessibility built-in)
Fully customizable with Tailwind

Database Architecture

Primary Database: PostgreSQL 16

PostgreSQL is our single source of truth. Why PostgreSQL?

ACID compliance: Critical for financial transactions
JSON support: Flexible schema where needed
Performance: Excellent query optimization
Reliability: 20+ years of production hardening
Cost: Open source with commercial support available

Configuration Strategy:

Master-replica setup for read scaling
Connection pooling via pgBouncer
Partitioning for large tables (transactions, audit logs)

Caching Layer: Redis

Redis handles:

Session storage
API response caching
Rate limiting counters
Real-time leaderboards/analytics
Pub/Sub for real-time notifications

Alternative Considered: MongoDB
We chose PostgreSQL over MongoDB because:

Financial data needs strong consistency
ACID transactions are non-negotiable
PostgreSQL's JSON support gives us flexibility where needed
Lower operational complexity (one database to master)

Message Queue: RabbitMQ

For asynchronous processing and microservice communication:

Use Cases:

Email/SMS notifications
Transaction processing pipelines
Audit log generation
Report generation
Webhook dispatching

Why RabbitMQ over Kafka?

Lower operational overhead
Better for traditional queuing patterns
Sufficient throughput for our scale (5K users/day)
We'll migrate to Kafka if we exceed 100K+ messages/second

Payment Integration

Primary Gateway: Stripe

Industry-leading developer experience
Comprehensive API documentation
Strong fraud protection
PCI compliance handled
Cost: 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction

Regional Alternatives:

Paystack: African markets (1.5% + ₦100 local cards)
Flutterwave: Multi-gateway redundancy

We're implementing a payment gateway abstraction layer to support multiple providers and easy switching.

Microservices Architecture

Our services are organized by domain:

├── auth-service          (Authentication & JWT)
├── user-service          (User management & KYC)
├── account-service       (Bank accounts & balances)
├── transaction-service   (Payments & transfers)
├── notification-service  (Email, SMS, Push)
├── audit-service         (Logging & compliance)
├── analytics-service     (Reporting & insights)
└── api-gateway          (Routing & rate limiting)

Communication Patterns:

Synchronous: REST APIs (Gin HTTP)
Asynchronous: RabbitMQ (event-driven)
Real-time: WebSockets for notifications

Infrastructure & Hosting

Hosting Provider: Hetzner Cloud

After evaluating AWS, DigitalOcean, Linode, and Hetzner, we chose Hetzner for:

Price-performance ratio: 40-60% cheaper than AWS/DO
Included traffic: 20TB/month vs 1-2TB on competitors
European data centers: GDPR compliance by default
Predictable pricing: No surprise egress fees

Phase 1 Infrastructure (MVP):

Production Environment:
├── 3x App Servers     (4 vCPU, 8GB RAM each)  - €46.20/month
├── 1x Database        (8 vCPU, 16GB RAM)      - €36.26/month
├── 1x Cache/Queue     (4 vCPU, 8GB RAM)       - €15.40/month
├── 1x Monitoring      (2 vCPU, 4GB RAM)       - €4.15/month
└── Load Balancer      (Nginx on separate VPS)  - €4.15/month
Total: ~€110/month (~$120/month)

Staging Environment:

1x All-in-one VPS (4 vCPU, 8GB RAM) - €15.40/month

CDN & Security: Cloudflare

Free tier for MVP (DDoS protection, CDN, SSL)
Pro plan ($20/month) when we need WAF and image optimization
R2 storage for file uploads (free egress = massive savings)

DevOps & CI/CD

Version Control: GitHub

Private repositories for all code
Branch protection rules
Required PR reviews (2+ approvers for production)

CI/CD: GitHub Actions

Our pipeline:

Pipeline Stages:
1. Lint & Format Check (golangci-lint, ESLint)
2. Unit Tests (Go: testify, Frontend: Vitest)
3. Integration Tests (Testcontainers)
4. Security Scanning (Trivy, Snyk)
5. Build Docker Images
6. Push to Registry (GitHub Container Registry)
7. Deploy to Staging (automatic)
8. Deploy to Production (manual approval)

Cost: 2,000 minutes/month free, ~$10-30/month beyond that.

Containerization: Docker + Docker Compose

Each microservice is containerized with:

Multi-stage builds (smaller images)
Non-root user (security)
Health checks
Resource limits

Phase 1: Docker Compose for orchestration
Phase 2: Migrate to K3s (lightweight Kubernetes) when we exceed 10 services

Monitoring & Observability

Self-Hosted Grafana Stack (Free + VPS costs)

Monitoring Components:
├── Prometheus       (Metrics collection)
├── Grafana         (Dashboards & visualization)
├── Loki            (Log aggregation)
├── Tempo           (Distributed tracing)
└── AlertManager    (Alert routing)

Key Metrics We Track:

Application Metrics:

Request rate, error rate, duration (RED metrics)
Database query performance
Cache hit ratios
Queue depth and processing time

Business Metrics:

Transaction volume and value
User sign-ups and activations
Failed login attempts (security)
API usage by endpoint

Error Tracking: Sentry

Free tier: 5,000 errors/month
Source maps for readable stack traces
Release tracking for regression detection
Performance monitoring included

Uptime Monitoring: UptimeRobot

Free: 50 monitors, 5-minute intervals
Public status page
Multi-channel alerting (Slack, email, SMS)

Security Infrastructure

Banking applications demand enterprise-grade security:

Authentication & Authorization:

JWT tokens with short expiration (15 minutes)
Refresh token rotation
Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) via Casbin
Multi-factor authentication (TOTP)

Data Protection:

AES-256 encryption at rest
TLS 1.3 for data in transit
Bcrypt for password hashing (cost factor: 12)
PII encryption in database

Security Tools:

├── Let's Encrypt      (Free SSL certificates)
├── Cloudflare WAF     (Web Application Firewall)
├── Trivy              (Container vulnerability scanning)
├── Snyk               (Dependency vulnerability scanning)
├── OWASP ZAP          (Security testing)
└── HashiCorp Vault    (Secrets management)

Compliance:

PCI DSS requirements through Stripe
GDPR compliance (EU data residency)
Audit logging for all financial transactions
Regular penetration testing (quarterly)

Testing Strategy

Testing Pyramid:

                    ╱╲
                   ╱  ╲
                  ╱ E2E ╲         ~10% (Critical flows)
                 ╱────────╲
                ╱          ╲
               ╱ Integration╲     ~30% (API contracts)
              ╱──────────────╲
             ╱                ╲
            ╱   Unit Tests     ╲   ~60% (Business logic)
           ╱────────────────────╲

Backend Testing:

Unit tests: testify package (80%+ coverage target)
Integration tests: Testcontainers (real DB/Redis)
Load testing: k6 (simulate 10K concurrent users)

Frontend Testing:

Unit tests: Vitest + React Testing Library
E2E tests: Playwright (critical user journeys)
Visual regression: Percy or Chromatic

Performance Testing:

# k6 load test example
k6 run --vus 1000 --duration 5m load-test.js

We test for:

1,000 concurrent users baseline
5,000 concurrent users peak
10,000 concurrent users stress test

File Storage Strategy

Cloudflare R2 (S3-compatible)

$0.015/GB/month storage
$0 egress fees (huge savings vs S3)
10GB free tier
Global edge network

Use cases:

User profile pictures
KYC documents (encrypted)
Transaction receipts
Bank statements
Marketing assets

Alternative evaluated: AWS S3
Why R2 wins: At scale, egress fees on S3 would cost 10x more. R2's free egress is perfect for a customer-facing app.

Communication Services

Email: Resend

3,000 emails/month free
$20/month for 50,000 emails
Great API, React Email templates

SMS: Twilio

Pay-as-you-go: $0.0079/SMS (US)
Varies by country
OTP, transaction alerts, notifications

Push Notifications: Firebase Cloud Messaging

Completely free
Cross-platform (iOS, Android, Web)
Reliable delivery

In-App Notifications:

Custom WebSocket server (Go)
Redis pub/sub for real-time delivery
Fallback to polling for offline users

Development Tools for the Team

Code Editors:

VS Code (Free) - Recommended for frontend
GoLand ($89/year first year) - Recommended for backend

API Development:

Bruno (Free, open source) - Primary
Postman (Free tier) - Alternative

Database Management:

DBeaver (Free) - Universal SQL client
TablePlus ($89 one-time) - Beautiful UI, optional

Collaboration:

Linear ($8/user/month) - Project management
Notion (Free for teams <10) - Documentation
Slack (Free tier) - Team communication

Developer Desktop Specifications

We're investing in powerful workstations to maximize productivity. Here are our recommended specs:

Option 1: High-Performance Desktop (Recommended)

Purpose: Backend development, Docker containers, database work

CPU:        AMD Ryzen 9 7950X (16-core, 32-thread)
            or Intel i9-13900K (24-core, 32-thread)

RAM:        64GB DDR5 (32GB minimum, 64GB recommended)
            - Running Docker containers is RAM-intensive
            - Database queries and caching simulations

Storage:    1TB NVMe SSD (Gen 4) - Primary
            + 2TB SSD - Secondary for projects/VMs

GPU:        NVIDIA RTX 3060 (12GB) or RTX 4060
            - Not for gaming, but for:
              * Multiple 4K monitors
              * ML/AI experimentation
              * Video encoding for demos

Motherboard: Compatible with CPU (B650 for AMD, B760 for Intel)

PSU:        750W 80+ Gold certified

Cooling:    AIO Liquid Cooler (240mm minimum)

Case:       Mid-tower with good airflow

Cost:       $1,800 - $2,500

Performance Benefits:

Compile large Go projects in seconds
Run entire microservices stack locally
Multiple Docker containers without slowdown
VM snapshots for testing
Smooth IDE experience with large codebases

Option 2: Mid-Range Desktop (Budget-Conscious)

Purpose: Frontend development, general backend work

CPU:        AMD Ryzen 7 7700X (8-core, 16-thread)
            or Intel i7-13700K (16-core, 24-thread)

RAM:        32GB DDR5 (minimum for comfortable development)

Storage:    512GB NVMe SSD (Gen 4) - Primary
            + 1TB SSD - Secondary

GPU:        NVIDIA GTX 1660 Super or RTX 3050
            - Dual monitor support
            - Basic GPU tasks

Motherboard: B650 (AMD) or B660 (Intel)

PSU:        650W 80+ Gold

Cooling:    Tower Air Cooler (Noctua NH-D15 or similar)

Cost:       $1,200 - $1,600

Option 3: Laptop for Remote/Hybrid Workers

For team members who need portability:

Recommended Models:

MacBook Pro 16" M3 Pro:
- M3 Pro chip (12-core CPU)
- 36GB unified memory
- 512GB SSD
- Cost: ~$2,900
- Best for: Mac-preferring developers

Dell XPS 15 or Lenovo ThinkPad P16:
- Intel i9-13900H or AMD Ryzen 9 7945HX
- 64GB RAM
- 1TB NVMe SSD
- NVIDIA RTX 4060 Mobile
- Cost: ~$2,500 - $3,200
- Best for: Windows/Linux developers

Framework Laptop 16:
- AMD Ryzen 9 7940HS
- 64GB RAM
- Modular/repairable design
- Cost: ~$2,000 - $2,500
- Best for: Linux enthusiasts, right-to-repair advocates

Peripheral Recommendations

Monitor Setup:
├── Primary: 32" 4K monitor (Dell U3223QE) - $650
├── Secondary: 27" 1440p monitor - $300
└── Total: Dual monitor setup - ~$950

Keyboard: Mechanical keyboard
├── Keychron K8 Pro - $110
├── Ducky One 3 - $150
└── Leopold FC900R - $130

Mouse: Logitech MX Master 3S - $100

Headset: Sony WH-1000XM5 or Bose 700 - $350

Desk: Standing desk (Flexispot E7) - $450

Chair: Herman Miller Aeron or Steelcase Leap - $1,200

Total Investment Per Developer:

Desktop: $1,800 - $2,500
Monitors: $950
Peripherals: $600
Furniture: $1,650
Total: $5,000 - $5,700 per developer

For a team of 10: $50,000 - $57,000 one-time investment

Why This Investment Matters:

Productivity: 30-second compile times vs 5-second = 200+ hours saved per year per developer
Morale: Developers frustrated with slow machines are less productive and more likely to leave
Local Testing: Run entire production-like environment on local machine
Longevity: These machines will last 5+ years without upgrades

Cost Breakdown

Monthly Recurring Costs (Phase 1):

Infrastructure:
├── Hetzner VPS (5 servers)        €110.16/month  ($120)
├── Cloudflare Pro                  $20.00/month
├── Domain name                      $1.00/month  ($12/year)
├── File Storage (R2 - 100GB)       $1.50/month
├── Email (Resend)                  $0.00/month  (free tier)
├── Monitoring (self-hosted)        $0.00/month
└── Backups (Backblaze B2)          $2.00/month
────────────────────────────────────────────────
Infrastructure Total:              ~$145/month

Team Tools:
├── Linear (10 users)               $80/month
├── Slack (free tier)               $0/month
├── GitHub (free tier)              $0/month
├── Notion (free tier)              $0/month
└── GoLand licenses (optional)      $74/month ($890/year)
────────────────────────────────────────────────
Tools Total:                       ~$80-154/month

Variable Costs:
├── SMS (Twilio)                    $20-100/month
├── Payment processing (Stripe)     2.9% + $0.30/transaction
└── CI/CD overage                   $10-30/month
────────────────────────────────────────────────
Variable Total:                    ~$30-130/month

────────────────────────────────────────────────
TOTAL MONTHLY: $255-429/month ($3,000-5,000/year)

One-Time Costs:

Development Hardware:
├── 10x Developer Workstations      $50,000-57,000
├── 2x Testing Devices (mobile)     $2,000
└── Network Equipment               $1,000
────────────────────────────────────────────────
Hardware Total:                     ~$53,000-60,000

Optional Tools:
├── TablePlus licenses (10)         $890
└── Design tools (Figma)            $180/year
────────────────────────────────────────────────
Optional Total:                     ~$1,070

Annual Cost Projection:

Year 1:
├── Infrastructure & Tools          $3,000-5,000
├── Hardware (one-time)             $53,000-60,000
├── Variable costs                  $5,000-15,000
────────────────────────────────────────────────
Total Year 1:                       $61,000-80,000

Year 2+ (no hardware):
├── Infrastructure & Tools          $5,000-8,000
├── Variable costs                  $10,000-30,000
────────────────────────────────────────────────
Total Year 2+:                      $15,000-38,000/year

Scaling Plan

Phase 1: MVP (0-5K users) - Current Plan

Single region deployment
Manual scaling
Basic monitoring
Cost: ~$300/month

Phase 2: Growth (5K-50K users) - Months 6-18

Multi-region deployment (US + EU)
Auto-scaling groups
Advanced monitoring with Grafana Cloud
Kubernetes migration
Cost: ~$1,000-2,000/month

Phase 3: Scale (50K-500K users) - Year 2+

Multi-region active-active
Database sharding
Kafka for event streaming
Dedicated security team
Cost: ~$5,000-10,000/month

Why This Stack Will Succeed

1. Battle-Tested Technologies Every tool in our stack is production-proven by companies at our scale and beyond:

Go: Google, Uber, Dropbox
PostgreSQL: Instagram, Spotify, Netflix
Redis: Twitter, GitHub, Stack Overflow
Next.js: TikTok, Twitch, Hulu

2. Right-Sized for Our Scale We're not over-engineering for problems we don't have yet:

No Kubernetes until we need it (Phase 2)
No Kafka until we exceed RabbitMQ's capabilities
No microservices for simple CRUD operations

3. Cost-Effective

$300/month infrastructure vs $3,000+ with AWS
Open-source first approach
Pay for what we use (variable costs only)

4. Developer Experience

Fast compile times (Go)
Hot reload in development (Next.js)
Type safety across the stack (TypeScript)
Excellent debugging tools

5. Security-First

Bank-grade encryption
Regular security audits
Compliance built-in
Defense in depth

Open Source Contributions

We believe in giving back to the community. We'll be open-sourcing:

Internal developer tools
Testing utilities
Deployment scripts
Monitoring dashboards
Performance benchmarks

Follow our GitHub: github.com/desishub (example)

Team Roles & Responsibilities

Our 10-person team structure:

├── Backend Team (4 developers)
│   ├── Microservices architecture
│   ├── API development
│   ├── Database optimization
│   └── Integration with external services
│
├── Frontend Team (2 developers)
│   ├── Next.js application
│   ├── UI component library
│   ├── Mobile-responsive design
│   └── Performance optimization
│
├── DevOps Engineer (1)
│   ├── Infrastructure management
│   ├── CI/CD pipelines
│   ├── Monitoring & alerting
│   └── Security hardening
│
├── QA Engineer (1)
│   ├── Test automation
│   ├── Load testing
│   ├── Security testing
│   └── Regression testing
│
├── Full-Stack Developer (1)
│   ├── Cross-team support
│   ├── Proof of concepts
│   ├── Integration work
│   └── Performance optimization
│
└── Product Manager (1)
    ├── Roadmap planning
    ├── Requirements gathering
    ├── Stakeholder management
    └── Release coordination

Timeline & Milestones

Q4 2024 (Current):

✅ Tech stack finalized
✅ Hardware procurement started
🚧 Development environment setup
🚧 CI/CD pipeline configuration

Q1 2025:

Core authentication service
User management service
Basic account operations
MVP frontend
Load testing infrastructure

Q2 2025:

Transaction processing
Payment integration
Notification system
Security audit
Beta launch (100 users)

Q3 2025:

Analytics dashboard
Advanced RBAC
Mobile optimization
Performance optimization
Public launch (5,000 users)

Q4 2025:

Additional payment methods
International expansion
Advanced reporting
Scale to 20,000 users

Success Metrics

We'll measure our success by:

Technical Metrics:

API response time: <200ms (p95)
Uptime: >99.9%
Error rate: <0.1%
Build time: <5 minutes
Deployment frequency: >10/week

Business Metrics:

User acquisition cost
Transaction volume
Customer satisfaction (NPS)
Time to market for features
Developer productivity

Community Engagement

We're building in public and want your feedback:

Follow our journey:

Twitter/X: @DesiHubTech
Blog: blog.desishub.com
YouTube: Weekly dev vlogs
Discord: discord.gg/desishub

Open positions: We're hiring! Check careers.desishub.com for:

Senior Go Backend Engineer
Senior Frontend Engineer (Next.js)
DevOps Engineer
Security Engineer

Conclusion

Building a banking platform is ambitious, but with the right tools, team, and mindset, we're confident in our approach. This stack gives us:

✅ Performance: Handle millions of requests efficiently
✅ Security: Bank-grade protection for user data
✅ Scalability: Grow from 5K to 500K+ users
✅ Cost-efficiency: $300/month instead of $3,000+
✅ Developer experience: Modern tools that developers love

We're excited to build DesiHub and share our learnings with the community. Stay tuned for deep-dive technical articles on each component of our stack.

Questions? Drop them in the comments or reach out on Twitter @DesiHubTech

Want to contribute? We're hiring and welcoming open-source contributors!

Written by the DesiHub Engineering Team
Last updated: November 20, 2025

Additional Resources

Documentation:

Learning Resources:

Contact:

Email: engineering@desishub.com
GitHub: github.com/desishub
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/desishub

Appendix: Quick Reference

Environment Variables Template

# Application
APP_ENV=production
APP_PORT=8080
APP_SECRET_KEY=your-secret-key-here
 
# Database
DB_HOST=localhost
DB_PORT=5432
DB_USER=desishub
DB_PASSWORD=secure-password
DB_NAME=desishub_prod
 
# Redis
REDIS_HOST=localhost
REDIS_PORT=6379
REDIS_PASSWORD=secure-password
 
# JWT
JWT_SECRET=your-jwt-secret
JWT_EXPIRY=15m
REFRESH_TOKEN_EXPIRY=7d
 
# Stripe
STRIPE_SECRET_KEY=sk_live_...
STRIPE_WEBHOOK_SECRET=whsec_...
 
# Cloudflare R2
R2_ACCOUNT_ID=your-account-id
R2_ACCESS_KEY_ID=your-access-key
R2_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=your-secret-key
R2_BUCKET_NAME=desishub-files
 
# Email
RESEND_API_KEY=re_...
 
# SMS
TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID=AC...
TWILIO_AUTH_TOKEN=...
TWILIO_PHONE_NUMBER=+1234567890

Docker Compose Quick Start

version: "3.8"
 
services:
  postgres:
    image: postgres:16-alpine
    environment:
      POSTGRES_DB: desishub_dev
      POSTGRES_USER: desishub
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: devpassword
    ports:
      - "5432:5432"
    volumes:
      - postgres_data:/var/lib/postgresql/data
 
  redis:
    image: redis:7-alpine
    ports:
      - "6379:6379"
    command: redis-server --requirepass devpassword
 
  rabbitmq:
    image: rabbitmq:3-management-alpine
    ports:
      - "5672:5672"
      - "15672:15672"
    environment:
      RABBITMQ_DEFAULT_USER: desishub
      RABBITMQ_DEFAULT_PASS: devpassword
 
volumes:
  postgres_data:

Load Test Script (k6)

import http from "k6/http";
import { check, sleep } from "k6";
 
export const options = {
  stages: [
    { duration: "2m", target: 100 },
    { duration: "5m", target: 1000 },
    { duration: "2m", target: 0 },
  ],
  thresholds: {
    http_req_duration: ["p(95)<200"],
    http_req_failed: ["rate<0.01"],
  },
};
 
export default function () {
  const res = http.get("https://api.desishub.com/health");
  check(res, {
    "status is 200": (r) => r.status === 200,
    "response time < 200ms": (r) => r.timings.duration < 200,
  });
  sleep(1);
}

Thank you for reading! We're excited to build DesiHub and revolutionize banking together. 🚀