Build a Key-Value Database in Go: From Scratch to Production

Why Build a Database?

Building a database from scratch is one of the most effective ways to deeply understand systems engineering. You will deal with complex challenges like distributed systems trade-offs, disk I/O, concurrency, memory management, and network protocols.

What You’ll Learn

• Core Storage: Hash maps, on-disk layout, SSTables, LSM trees, and WAL (Write-Ahead Log)
• Concurrency: Goroutines, locks, safe access patterns, and thread safety
• Performance: Profiling, benchmarking, compaction, and Bloom filters
• Networking: TCP framing, custom protocols, and client libraries
• Production Operations: Monitoring, metrics, replication, security, and deployment

Prerequisites

• Comfortable writing non-trivial Go applications
• Basic understanding of data structures
• Familiarity with the Go standard library

Is this only theory?

No—you implement components (WAL, LSM pieces, server, client) in a progression that mirrors how engines are actually built in the real world.