Design Real-Time Gaming Leaderboard
What is a Real-Time Leaderboard?
A real-time leaderboard is a ranking system that displays participants ordered by their scores and pushes live updates to all viewers as scores change. Unlike traditional leaderboards that refresh periodically, real-time leaderboards show ranking changes within milliseconds of a score update.
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The core challenge is maintaining accurate rankings while simultaneously broadcasting updates to millions of connected viewers. When a participant scores, the system must update the ranking, determine which positions changed, and notify all relevant clients, all within a tight latency budget.
Popular Examples: leaderboards in online games, fitness apps, or platforms like Kaggle competitions.
In a real-time leaderboard, updates happen almost instantly:
- A player’s score changes (e.g., after scoring a point or defeating an opponent).
- The system updates that player’s rank immediately.
- Other players can see the updated position without waiting or refreshing.
This real-time aspect makes the user experience more dynamic and engaging.
However, it also introduces significant technical challenges, such as:
- Efficiently retrieving Top-N players (e.g., Top 10 or Top 100).
- Allowing players to quickly find their own rank without scanning the entire leaderboard.
In this chapter, we will walk through the high-level design of a real-time leaderboard system.
Let’s begin by clarifying the requirements.