Question 1

What is SysPad?

Accepted Answer

SysPad is a free, browser-based tool for designing cloud architectures and simulating their behaviour before you build them. You drag production-accurate components (AWS plus third-party services) onto a canvas, connect them, configure each node, and run a discrete traffic simulation that estimates throughput, latency, utilisation, bottlenecks, and monthly cost.

Question 2

Is SysPad free and does it need an account?

Accepted Answer

Yes, SysPad is free to use and the current version needs no sign-in or account. Diagrams are stored locally in your browser, and no AWS account is required.

Question 3

How is SysPad different from Lucidchart, draw.io, or Cloudcraft?

Accepted Answer

Those tools treat architecture as a static picture. SysPad runs a simulation engine in the browser, so it answers quantitative questions like what happens when 10,000 requests per second hit a load balancer, and which path through the graph has the highest latency.

Question 4

Can I use SysPad to prepare for system design interviews?

Accepted Answer

Yes. SysPad ships an Interview prep library of System Design Interview practice exercises (rate limiter, key-value store, news feed, chat system, URL shortener, and more), each buildable and simulatable on the canvas, plus around 84 built-in learning modules explaining how each cloud component works. You can load an exercise, trace its request flows step by step, and see where it bottlenecks.

Question 5

Can AI assistants create SysPad diagrams?

Accepted Answer

Yes. SysPad has a documented JSON format (.syspad.json) that AI assistants can generate from a description; you import it with one click or paste it straight onto the canvas. There is also a hosted MCP server at https://syspad.io/mcp and a quickstart for AI agents at https://syspad.io/spec.

Question 6

Which cloud services can SysPad model?

Accepted Answer

AWS is the deepest catalog (compute, database, networking, storage, messaging, analytics, AI/ML, and security). SysPad also models third-party services including Cloudflare, Stripe, Auth0, Snowflake, Databricks, BigQuery, OpenAI, Anthropic, MongoDB Atlas, PlanetScale, and Redis Cloud.

SysPad: design & simulate any cloud architecture