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E-News - News Aggregation & Publishing Platform

Initially built as a news aggregation platform using third-party APIs, this project evolved into a full-stack content publishing system after encountering real-world API reliability issues in production.

Next.jsNode.jsExpress.jsMongoDBMERNAdmin PanelThemingREST APIs
Live DemoGitHub

Problem

Most free external news APIs are unreliable in production environments, impose strict rate limits, and restrict usage on live domains, making them unsuitable for scalable applications.

Challenges

  • External APIs failing or blocking requests on live domains
  • Lack of control over content structure and moderation
  • Need for frequent content updates without redeploying frontend
  • Designing engagement features like likes and comments

Constraints

  • Initially dependent on third-party APIs
  • Solo developer with limited infrastructure resources
  • Need to support both content publishing and user interaction

Key Engineering Decisions

  • Replaced third-party APIs with a custom backend to gain full data ownership
  • Chose MERN stack to maintain a single JavaScript ecosystem
  • Built an admin panel for managing articles and monitoring frontend content
  • Designed REST APIs as the single source of truth for articles and engagement
  • Implemented a theming system with 7 color themes for better personalization

Trade-offs

  • Increased development effort compared to using external APIs
  • Responsibility for content freshness moved entirely to the backend
  • No automatic aggregation from large publishers by design

Impact

  • Built a production-ready content platform instead of a demo application
  • Learned how real-world API limitations affect product decisions
  • Gained experience in backend-driven content management systems
  • Improved understanding of admin tooling and moderation workflows

Next Improvements

  • Add role-based access control for admin users
  • Introduce article scheduling and draft support
  • Implement full-text search and category indexing
  • Add analytics dashboard for views and engagement metrics
  • Introduce server-side caching for popular articles