Etsy processed over $13.2 billion in sales in 2024, connecting more than 95 million buyers with 7.5 million sellers around the world. With millions of unique listings and high buyer intent, it’s one of the most active niche marketplaces on the internet.
To support this scale, Etsy relies on a tech stack built for speed, stability, and deep personalization. From advanced search to real-time recommendations, every part of its infrastructure is geared toward seamless buyer-seller interactions and rapid feature deployment.
If you’re planning to build a similar platform, studying Etsy’s approach can save months of trial and error. This article breaks down the technologies and strategies powering Etsy — and shows how you can build a high-performance marketplace without starting from scratch.
TL;DR
Etsy processed $13.2B in sales in 2024, serving over 95M buyers and 7.5M sellers, requiring a tech stack built for massive scale and personalization.
- Frontend: React, JavaScript, and TypeScript power a responsive and modern UI.
- Backend: PHP forms the core, with Scala and Java used for scalable microservices.
- Data: MySQL, Redis, Kafka, Hadoop, and Presto support fast search, analytics, and real-time recommendations.
- Search & Recommendations: Powered by Elasticsearch and ML models tailored to buyer behavior and unique listings.
- DevOps: CI/CD with Jenkins, GitHub Actions, Docker, and Kubernetes for fast, safe deployments.
- Security: Compliance with GDPR, CCPA, and PCI-DSS standards ensures trust and safety.
While Etsy’s stack is custom-built, startups can now launch marketplaces faster with modern, pre-built solutions that handle scalability, payments, listings, and user management out of the box.
Frontend technologies of Etsy Tech Stack
The frontend of Etsy tech stack is an amalgamation of several technologies that together create an engaging and user-friendly interface.
ReactJS: Etsy uses ReactJS, a JavaScript library, for building user interfaces. ReactJS allows Etsy to build a fast, simple, and scalable frontend, with components that are reusable, leading to a consistent look and feel across the platform. The virtual DOM (Document Object Model) in ReactJS ensures a seamless user experience by minimizing page reloads.
Redux: Etsy tech stack also utilizes Redux, a predictable state container designed to help JavaScript apps behave consistently across different environments. Redux makes it easier to manage the state of the application, providing a single source of truth, and allows for better debugging and testing of the app.
Webpack: Webpack is another tool in Etsy’s frontend arsenal. It’s a module bundler for modern JavaScript applications. Webpack compiles and bundles all of Etsy’s static assets, such as JavaScript and CSS files, optimizing them for performance.
Sass (Syntactically Awesome Style Sheets): For styling, Etsy uses Sass, a CSS preprocessor that extends the language, adding features that allow variables, functions, and more, which are compiled into regular CSS. This helps Etsy maintain a consistent and orderly style sheet.
JavaScript (ES6): Etsy uses the latest standards of JavaScript, ES6, to write clear and concise code. ES6 provides new syntax for writing complex applications, including classes and modules, which make it easier to create and manage large JavaScript codebases.
Google Tag Manager: GTM is used for tracking and analytics. It enables Etsy to deploy and update measurement tags on their website and mobile apps without major code changes and app releases.
Backend technologies of Etsy Tech Stack
Etsy’s backend technology stack is a well-rounded combination of reliable and robust technologies that facilitate its function as a giant online marketplace.
PHP: PHP forms the backbone of Etsy’s backend. As an open-source server-side scripting language, PHP is known for its simplicity and speed, making it an ideal choice for Etsy’s backend. It is primarily used to generate dynamic page content, collect form data, and handle cookies, among other tasks.
Apache: Secondly, Etsy uses Apache, a free and open-source cross-platform web server software. Apache is renowned for its robustness, making it a popular choice for high-volume websites like Etsy. It is responsible for serving static content to the client, handling SSL requests, and performing other server-side tasks.
MySQL: MySQL is a relational database management system based on SQL (Structured Query Language). Etsy uses MySQL to store, retrieve and manipulate data related to its users, products, and transactions. Its scalability and high performance make it perfect for handling Etsy’s large-scale data needs.
ElasticSearch: Etsy tech stack also uses ElasticSearch, a powerful open-source search and analytics engine. It is used for executing complex searches that involve ranking and grouping, full-text search, and geo-based search. Given the vast number of products on Etsy, ElasticSearch facilitates a quick and efficient discovery of products.
Hadoop: Etsy uses Hadoop and Vertica for big data. Hadoop is a framework that allows for the distributed processing of large data sets across clusters of computers. Vertica, on the other hand, is a scalable grid-based, column-oriented database designed to manage large, fast-growing volumes of data and provide very fast query performance. These technologies allow Etsy to analyze and extract insights from their extensive data, enhancing the overall user experience.
Through this combination of technologies, Etsy tech stack has a robust backend infrastructure that supports its massive online marketplace operations.
Infrastructure technologies of Etsy Tech Stack
Etsy’s tech stack is continually evolving to meet the demands of its online marketplace. As part of this evolution, Etsy migrated its service infrastructure to the cloud in 2018. This migration significantly improved their deployment process and enabled them to handle vast amounts of data more efficiently.
Canary Lite: One of the most remarkable shifts in Etsy’s tech stack was the adoption of a canary deployment strategy. Unlike the previous blue-green deployment strategy, the canary strategy rolls out changes to a small subset of traffic before switching over all traffic. This strategy minimizes risk and allows for a more controlled monitoring of changes.
However, Etsy’s search system design had limitations that made canary rollouts challenging. To overcome these limitations, Etsy’s search team built a custom tool called “Canary Lite”. Despite not having a single load balancer or API endpoint for traffic routing, this tool allows them to incorporate a canary component into the deployment process.
Vitess: Another significant change in Etsy’s cloud infrastructure was the migration of their payments databases to a single sharded environment managed by Vitess. The need for this change was urgent, as two of their databases were no longer vertically scalable, posing a high risk to their payment processing system.
The migration process was completed in two phases, reducing the load on the primary payments database by 60%. It was a challenging transition, requiring significant modifications to the database and a unique approach to data sharding.
Etsy’s cloud infrastructure technologies, including canary deployment strategies, Vitess are critical to its data management and service delivery. They reflect a commitment to innovation and an ongoing effort to optimize performance and scalability.
Behind the handmade crafts and vintage finds is a carefully built tech stack that scales with demand, delivers fast personalized experiences, and supports millions of sellers.
The takeaway? A strong marketplace needs more than just a good idea — it needs the right technology to bring it to life.
If you’re planning to build a niche marketplace, you don’t have to reinvent what Etsy already figured out. With Appscrip, you get a robust, ready-to-launch platform built to handle real-world ecommerce challenges — from storefronts and product management to secure payments and logistics.
Why choose Appscrip?
- Full suite of ecommerce features: listings, cart, checkout, reviews, analytics
- Custom branding and user experience tailored to your niche
- Native apps for Android and iOS from day one
- Scalable architecture that grows with your business
Let’s turn your marketplace idea into a high-performance ecommerce platform. We’ll help you get to market faster — with less risk and more flexibility.
Ready to build the next big thing in ecommerce? Get in touch with Appscrip today.
