The Biggest Ukrainian Independent Media Website
Media
A year
Ukraine
2018-2019
Custom software developmentFrontend Development
AWSNode.jsPostgreSQLReactReduxRuby On Rails
Dedicated team behind the project







The client
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 unbiased news.
The Hromadske team was interested in the load and performance improvement to the flawless performance of the high-load system. Enhancing security was also an important issue for the team since they wanted to protect the system from potential DDoS attacks.
The challenge
The platform already had more than 2,5 million visitors every month. This number was projected to grow steadily, so the challenge was to ensure auto-scaling without any disruption to the work.
Also, the team required custom software for redactors and content creators who were managing the content flow of the website.
The great part of the project was dedicated to DevOps challenges, security, and scalability improvement: hosting costs optimization, services for mitigating DDoS attacks integration, performance optimization.
Approach / what was done
Implemented features
We developed a сustom CMS for redactors that make the process of news posting fast and easy.
Features:
- Ability to add video and pictures;
- Ability to customize the blocks and structure of the publications;
- Ability to plan and postpone publications.
We improved the site's navigation and content organization.
Features:
- Instant search of publications;
- Custom sorting of publications by data and relevance;
- Automatic translation of the publications.
We developed a responsive and fast high-load system using Auto Scaling on AWS to ensure the scalability and security of the solution and its flawless performance.
Additional features
- Integrations with social networks We simplified the website’s content promotion for journalists.
- Live TV Stream: a custom video service was developed that is distributed via Youtube, Smart TV, IPTV Player, and the primary Ukrainian streaming services.



Results
decreased the time editors spend managing the website
boosted website key performance metrics
server costs for AWS infrastructure and improved platform scalability and security
a modern and fast loading media website