Case Study: LinkedIn achieves rapid development cycles and scalable, asynchronous JVM web apps with Akka

Bringing Reactive Applications to the Java Virtual Machine

LinkedIn, the world’s largest professional network with over 160 million members, needed a modern, productive UI framework for its primarily Java-based server code. Traditional Java web frameworks were slow to reload and relied on stateful, thread-per-request models that hindered developer productivity and made scaling expensive. With Typesafe consulting support, LinkedIn sought a JVM framework that Java developers could adopt quickly and that would address both rapid development and efficient scalability.

They chose the Play Framework from the Typesafe Platform, using Play’s Java API and extending it with modules for Avro schemas and Dust templates. Play’s hot-reload and incremental compilation sped up edit–reload cycles (saving minutes per change), while its asynchronous, stateless architecture reduced server resource usage and simplified scaling. Typesafe helped incorporate LinkedIn’s improvements into upstream Play, giving LinkedIn faster development, lower infrastructure costs, and a future-proof, supported platform for broader adoption.

LinkedIn

Dean Thompson

Principal Architect