Circle — Community Platform
A community platform with member profiles, groups, real-time chat, events and moderation — a branded home that isn't at the mercy of social algorithms.
- Timeline
- 9 weeks
- Role
- Full-stack development
- Team
- 2 engineers
- Year
- 2025
real-time
Chat & feeds
owned
Audience
+50%
Engagement
Client goals
- ◎Own the audience and data
- ◎Drive engagement with real-time
- ◎Moderate at scale
Project overview
Circle is a branded community platform with feeds, groups, real-time chat and events — a home the client owns instead of renting from social platforms.
The client problem
Our solution
An owned platform with feeds, groups, real-time chat and events on a scalable socket layer, plus moderation tools to keep it healthy.
What we built
Features
Feeds & posts
Member posts, likes and comments.
Real-time chat
Group and DM messaging.
Groups
Topic spaces and roles.
Events
RSVPs and reminders.
Moderation
Reports, roles and tools.
Under the hood
Technical code
import { Server } from "socket.io"; const io = new Server(4000, { cors: { origin: process.env.APP_URL } }); io.on("connection", (socket) => { socket.on("join", (roomId) => socket.join(roomId)); socket.on("message", async ({ roomId, text, userId }) => { const msg = await saveMessage({ roomId, text, userId }); io.to(roomId).emit("message", msg); });});model Organization { id String @id @default(cuid()) name String members Membership[] createdAt DateTime @default(now())} model Membership { id String @id @default(cuid()) role Role @default(MEMBER) userId String orgId String @@unique([userId, orgId])} enum Role { OWNER ADMIN MEMBER }Integrations
APIs & services
Socket.IO
Real-time chat and presence.
Redis
Pub/sub scaling and caching.
Cloudinary
Media uploads.
Process
Development workflow
- 1
Discovery
Goals, users and success metrics defined on a free call.
- 2
Planning
Fixed scope, milestone plan and timeline in writing.
- 3
UI/UX design
Wireframes and a clean, modern design system.
- 4
Backend setup
Database schema, auth and core services.
- 5
API development
Typed, documented endpoints and integrations.
- 6
Frontend
Responsive, accessible UI wired to the API.
- 7
Testing
QA across devices plus performance & security checks.
- 8
Deployment
CI/CD, monitoring and a smooth production launch.
- 9
Support
Ongoing maintenance, updates and new features.
Speed & SEO
Performance & SEO
Performance
- ✓Server-side & static rendering for instant first paint
- ✓Image optimisation and lazy loading
- ✓Code-splitting and route-level prefetching
- ✓Edge/CDN caching with smart revalidation
- ✓Green Core Web Vitals (LCP, CLS, INP)
- ✓Database indexing and query tuning
SEO
- ✓Per-page metadata, canonical URLs and Open Graph
- ✓Structured data (JSON-LD) for rich results
- ✓Programmatic sitemap & robots
- ✓Semantic, accessible HTML
- ✓Clean, descriptive slug URLs
Built secure
Security
Outcome
Results & impact
real-time
Chat & feeds
owned
Audience
+50%
Engagement
Circle gave the client an owned community home with real-time engagement up 50% and full control over audience, data and moderation.
Build your community platform
Own your audience with feeds, chat, groups and events.