Case Study: Rebuilding a Scalable Student Financing Platform with Next.js and Prisma
tl;dr: Rebuilding a Scalable Student Financing Platform with Next.js and Prisma: We helped deineStudienfinanzierung, a leading student financing platform, rebuild their core product from scratch using modern technologies like Next.js, React, Apollo, and Prisma. The result was a leaner, scalable, and high-performing MVP, delivered within three months—handling thousands of users seamlessly from day one.
The problem
After five years of continuous evolution, deineStudienfinanzierung’s existing platform had become outdated due to deprecated technologies and a changing product scope. They needed a complete rewrite, not just a migration, aiming for a leaner, more scalable product that focused on the platform’s most critical user flows.
The challenge was not only technical but strategic: ensuring that the new platform could support rapid growth, minimize infrastructure costs, and simplify future feature development.
This is where AI Flow stepped in to build a smarter, faster, and highly scalable solution.
The approach
- Discovery: the client had a clear vision and initial architecture diagrams but sought technical leadership on how best to implement a future-proof system. In early conversations, we reviewed their needs, goals, and key bottlenecks in the old platform.
- Design: we proposed a modern full-stack architecture, choosing Next.js for the frontend, Apollo GraphQL for API communication, React for UI development, and Prisma as the ORM with a PostgreSQL database. From day one, we focused on building a robust foundation that would make future iterations fast and flexible.
- Implementation: we started by establishing the core libraries, setting up the database schemas, storage solutions, and backend logic. API layers and frontend flows were built incrementally, with continuous integration of third-party APIs for operational tasks.
- Testing: MVP testing included functional tests, performance monitoring, and stability checks under real user conditions. We launched during a high-traffic phase—without the need for fallback to the legacy platform—demonstrating the system’s reliability from day one.
- Delivery: the MVP was successfully delivered in under three months, migrating thousands of users to the new platform with minimal disruption. The foundation we built allowed the client’s team to extend new features quickly and efficiently.
The solution
- A full-stack web platform using Next.js, React, Apollo GraphQL, Prisma, and PostgreSQL, designed for maximum scalability and ease of maintenance.
- Efficient, remote-first collaboration, with minimal but effective daily standups and asynchronous communication through Jira, GitHub, and Slack.
- Low-cost infrastructure hosted on Digital Ocean, ensuring minimal operating costs without sacrificing performance.
- A developer-friendly codebase, allowing complex new flows to be added quickly thanks to a strong technical foundation.
The results
- A working prototype for page-by-page legal issue detection, ready for internal legal teams to review.
- Structured outputs for rapid triage and documentation of flagged content.
- A scalable baseline for integrating into larger content review workflows.
- A launchpad for future extensions like web-based UIs, active learning, or fine-tuned legal models.
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