Case Study: Lucid Software achieves scalable, high-performance reactive applications on the JVM with Akka

Lucid Software uses Typesafe for next generation platform

Lucid Software, maker of the web-based diagramming app Lucidchart, faced growing pains as their monolithic PHP/CakePHP backend became costly to scale and hard to partition, causing high request overhead and limiting performance, scalability, and reliability as usage increased.

They moved to the Typesafe Platform (Scala, Akka, Play) on the JVM to enable a service-oriented architecture, better monitoring, hot deployment, and parallel processing. Rewriting key services—most notably the image/PDF generator using Akka Futures and Actors—cut average response time by 53%, median response time by 37%, and reduced failure rates by 85%, delivering measurable gains in reliability and performance while the broader migration continues.

Lucid Software

Brian Pugh

VP of Engineering