🔗 URL Shortener API

A simple URL Shortener built with Node.js, Express, MongoDB, and Redis, designed to go beyond basic CRUD by adding rate limiting, caching, and unit testing.

---

🚀 Why this project?

Building a URL shortener is easy. Building one that is scalable, protected, and optimized is not.

This project focuses on real backend concepts like:

• Preventing abuse using rate limiting
• Improving performance using Redis caching
• Writing unit tests for APIs
• Clean project structure and separation of concerns

---

✨ Features

• 🔗 Generate short URLs from long URLs
• 🔁 Redirect short URLs to original URLs
• 📊 Basic analytics (visit count)
• ⚡ Redis-based caching for fast redirects
• 🛡️ Redis-based rate limiting on API routes
• 🧪 Unit testing using Jest & Supertest
• 📦 Clean MVC-based folder structure

---

🛠️ Tech Stack

• Node.js
• Express.js
• MongoDB + Mongoose
• Redis
• Jest & Supertest
• dotenv

---

📂 Project Structure

src/
├── controllers/     # Business logic
├── routes/          # API routes
├── models/          # MongoDB schemas
├── middlewares/     # Rate limiting
├── config/          # Redis & DB configs
├── tests/           # API tests
├── app.js
└── server.js

---

🔑 API Endpoints

Create Short URL

POST /url/getShortUrl

Body:

{
  "longUrl": "https://example.com"
}

Redirect to Original URL

GET /:shortId

Analytics

GET /url/show_data/:shortId

---

⚡ Redis Usage

🔹 Caching

• Redirect URLs are cached in Redis
• Reduces MongoDB queries
• Faster redirects

🔹 Rate Limiting

• Applied on /url routes
• Prevents spam & abuse
• Uses Redis for distributed rate limiting

---

🧪 Testing

• API tests written using Jest
• Supertest used to test Express endpoints
• Tests cover:
  • URL creation
  • Error cases
  • API responses

Run tests:

npm test

---

⚙️ Environment Variables

Create a .env file:

PORT=3000
MONGO_URI=your_mongodb_uri
REDIS_URL=your_redis_url
BASE_URL=http://localhost:3000

---

▶️ Run Locally

git clone https://github.com/devdesai06/URL-Shortener.git
cd URL-Shortener
npm install
npm start

---

📌 Future Improvements

• Expiration for short URLs
• Custom aliases
• Authentication & user-based URLs
• Docker support

---

Author

Dev Desai
Computer Science Student | Backend & Web Development

---

⭐ If you found this project helpful, please consider giving it a star on GitHub!