Client Brief
01
Load and performance improvement of the system
Auto-scaling for ensuring the flawless performance of the high-load system
02
DevOps challenges, security, and scalability improvement
Hosting costs optimization, services for mitigating DDoS attacks integration, performance optimization
03
Building custom software for redactors and content creators
Tools for analytics and marketing, implementation of accessibility requirements for people with low vision
04
Integrations with many third-party services
Cloudflare integration, video and podcast services, AMP framework integration, iframely integration
About Platform

Hromadske.UA is the first in Ukraine media platform, created and controlled by journalists. It’s independent of any kind of authority, politicians or oligarchs, and orientated on the unbiased news.Also, it is the first autonomous media that have its own satellite broadcast, and it is the only informational partner of BBC in Ukraine and a partner of such world-known organizations such as USAID, The World Bank, NATO OTAN, Reuters and others.

Solution
We created a new high-load platform for a wide audience of all ages. As the current audience didn’t stay for a long time on the resource, our tasks were to attract new readers and to hold the current audience longer on the platform. We had to offer a more personalized interface and implement unique features to bring the brand closer to a consumer.
Research
The research covered current and potential audiences of Hromadske.ua, Ukrainian and global media markets. According to the Factum Group Ukraine report, almost every fifth respondent from 18 to 65 years (17%) belongs to the potential audience of the media. Research showed the readers want to get personal settings and wider opportunities for the news sorting.
Gender
Age
Frequency of Use
Devices
Concept
Hromadske.ua has over 2.5 million unique readers every month with average session time nearly 1.5 minutes. So, the website needs to provide traffic to millions of users as well as to few of them. Our task was to create a modern media with simple navigation, clear and convenient administrative panel, and high speed of loading.
Modeling
As for the Ukrainian media market, most of the websites are written on WordPress without any trend technology in the front-end. Global media like BBC have more interesting technologies like Angular or React. After our research, we chose JavaScript-everywhere stack. Node.js has a better performance than Python or Ruby, and you don’t have to spend time on meta-programming like in Ruby and Ruby On Rails. Node.js is faster in one stream. As for Koa.js, it is minimalistic and modern and can be used for microservices. It is modular, and every next module can be connected as a separate package. It has other benefits, too: it is possible to describe the own middlewares, and the callback hell problem is solved by using Async/await.
Most of Ukrainian News Sites
WordPress
Most of the Global Media
Angular
React
Hromadske Tech Stack
Node.js
Why?High perfomance and speed in one stream
Koa.js
Why?Modern and minimalistic, can be used for microservices
React
Why?For development of Single-Page Application (SPA) features
Next.js
Why?To implement server-side rendering in React
Deployment & Delivery
Convenient admin panel for journalists

Clear navigation for both visitors and search engines

Live TV Stream

Integrations with social networks

AutoScaling and DevOps Automation

Talk to our expertsand get off-charge services
A high-level review of requirements and any technical procedures you have.Advice on architecture and the UX side of your current or future business.Help with the R&D plan.
Outcomes
Created modern and fast media website
Speed up pages loading time, simplified navigation and integrated a lot of features to adjust visitors' news-reading experience
Decreased the time editors spend managing the website by 70%
Created simple, fast, flexible admin panel for editors and authors to publish their articles in no time and additional efforts
Boosted website key performance metrics by 50%
Increased user retention rates and the time visitors spend on the website and decreased bounce rate
Optimized load and performance and solved DevOps challenges
Cut server costs for AWS infrastructure and improved platform scalability and security
Testimonial
With our Highload News Media project, we have reached our goals to increase analytics by rebuilding the infrastructure, boosting the performance of the website, and improving the news cloud panel for our journalists. Hromadske.ua is extremely thankful and satisfied with the costs spent since the results we gained are perfect. Ralabs team did the job in the best way possible to produce the desired outcome!
Contacts
artem@hromadske.ua+380 66 912 2292

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