Why We Migrated to Launch Darkly for Feature Flagging
By Hassan Ali, Technical Lead, Ecommerce
Function flags are a software program growth approach that enable groups to allow or disable sure options in an utility or service with out altering code.
At Unstoppable Domains, we used an in-house characteristic flag resolution for a number of years. Whereas it received the job completed, we had been beginning to encounter some limitations and points that made us contemplate different choices. After some analysis and testing, we determined emigrate to Launch Darkly, a well-liked characteristic flagging service.
On this put up, we’ll talk about why we made the change and the way we’ve benefited from utilizing Launch Darkly.
Our in-house resolution for managing characteristic flags was quite simple: a database desk with two primary columns, flag_name and is_enabled. This was straightforward to make use of, but additionally restricted the performance.
To empower non-developers to toggle characteristic flags, we added a person interface inside our Admin Panel. Whereas the person interface labored effectively, it grew to become difficult to navigate as soon as the record of characteristic flags grew. Documenting and managing the intensive record of characteristic flags was an ever-growing activity. Not all the flags had been documented, and we began having a number of flags with related names. At one level, a bug was launched in our UI that enabled all flags, which was actually scary! Fortunately our crew caught and reverted what might’ve been a expensive mistake.
Moreover, we began receiving elevated visitors on our website, and our characteristic flag desk was getting queried too usually. Consequently, the database grew to become a bottleneck, and we started to see excessive latency on the backend. Customers had been at occasions unable to carry out fundamental actions on the web site, comparable to trying to find domains or logging in. To beat this subject, we invested sources into caching characteristic flags, opening up the bottleneck.
Total, what began as a easy resolution for managing our in-house characteristic flag system ended up rising our inside upkeep workload and main us to search for different choices.
At first, our crew checked out constructing a extra sturdy in-house resolution, including a characteristic flag that could possibly be enabled on a per-domain foundation. For instance, we might activate new options for our dev groups and whales to check out and provides us suggestions earlier than we opened it up extra broadly. Nonetheless, the engineering price to construct out a sturdy characteristic flag administration platform was larger than an out-of-the-box resolution.
After some analysis and testing, we determined emigrate to Launch Darkly, which is a number one characteristic administration platform and is rather more dependable than our earlier implementation. The transition was easy – we migrated a batch of characteristic flags each week and accomplished the total transition of fifty flags inside 1 / 4.
Code earlier than LaunchDarkly:
The adoption of Launch Darkly has introduced a number of advantages to our crew, enhancing our growth course of and productiveness.
The platform’s flexibility permits us to allow flags on a per-user, per-wallet, or per-domain foundation, offering granular management over characteristic deployment. Including a brand new flag takes mere seconds, considerably bettering growth velocity in comparison with our earlier in-house resolution.
Launch Darkly’s built-in analytics supply insights into characteristic flag utilization, serving to preserve a clear codebase and cut back technical debt. The proportion rollout characteristic allows managed testing, minimizing danger and guaranteeing a seamless person expertise.
We leveraged Launch Darkly flags for a number of latest options, together with the UD.me token gallery, AI Avatars (the place we had been in a position to present early entry to neighborhood members), Sponsored Badges, and our E-mail Messaging Service.
Total, we’ve been extraordinarily proud of our resolution emigrate to Launch Darkly for characteristic flagging. Its sturdy capabilities, improved reliability, and visibility options have all made our growth course of smoother and extra environment friendly.
