googlecloudplatform/microservices-demo

Analysis updated 2026-06-21

★ 20,224GoAudience · developerComplexity · 4/5Setup · hard

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((repo))
    What It Does
      Sample e-commerce app
      11 microservices
      Cloud native learning
    Tech Stack
      Go Python Java C# Node.js
      Kubernetes and gRPC
      Google Cloud services
    Use Cases
      Learn microservices design
      Deploy to GKE
      Study Google Cloud tools
    Architecture
      Multi language services
      Service mesh traffic
      Spanner Memorystore
    Setup
      Google Cloud account
      GKE cluster required

mindmap root((repo)) What It Does Sample e-commerce app 11 microservices Cloud native learning Tech Stack Go Python Java C# Node.js Kubernetes and gRPC Google Cloud services Use Cases Learn microservices design Deploy to GKE Study Google Cloud tools Architecture Multi language services Service mesh traffic Spanner Memorystore Setup Google Cloud account GKE cluster required

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What do people build with it?

USE CASE 1

Study how 11 services written in different languages communicate over gRPC in a real deployable application.

USE CASE 2

Deploy a full Kubernetes application to Google Cloud with a handful of terminal commands to learn GKE hands-on.

USE CASE 3

Use as a reference architecture when designing your own microservices system with Google Cloud infrastructure.

What is it built with?

GoPythonJavaC#Node.jsKubernetesgRPC

How does it compare?

	googlecloudplatform/microservices-demo	temporalio/temporal	gravitational/teleport
Stars	20,224	20,232	20,298
Language	Go	Go	Go
Setup difficulty	hard	moderate	hard
Complexity	4/5	4/5	4/5
Audience	developer	developer	ops devops

Figures from each repo's GitHub metadata at analysis time.

How do you get it running?

Difficulty · hard Time to first run · 1h+

Requires a Google Cloud account and a running GKE cluster to deploy the full application.

In plain English

Online Boutique is a sample e-commerce web application built by Google to demonstrate how modern cloud infrastructure works. Users can browse products, add items to a cart, and go through a checkout process, but it is not a real store. Its purpose is educational: to show developers and architects how to build and run a cloud-native application using Google's tools. What makes it interesting is its architecture. The app is deliberately split into 11 separate services, each responsible for one function (cart storage, product catalog, payments, shipping, email confirmations, recommendations, ads, and so on), and each written in a different programming language, Go, Python, Java, C#, and Node.js. These services talk to each other using gRPC, a high-performance communication protocol. This multi-language, multi-service setup is a realistic example of what large software companies actually build. The whole system runs on Kubernetes, which is software for managing and scaling many containerized services across a cluster of machines. Google uses this demo to showcase their Google Kubernetes Engine (GKE), Cloud Service Mesh (for managing traffic between services), and other Google Cloud products like Spanner (a database), Memorystore (a cache), and their Gemini AI. You would use this project as a learning reference if you are studying microservices architecture, Kubernetes, or Google Cloud. It gives you a real, deployable application you can inspect and experiment with. The quickstart deploys the entire app to a Google Cloud account with a handful of terminal commands.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1

Walk me through the Online Boutique checkout flow, which microservices are involved and in what order do they communicate?

Prompt 2

How do I deploy the microservices-demo to my own Google Kubernetes Engine cluster step by step?

Prompt 3

Show me how the cart service and product catalog service communicate using gRPC in this demo, include the proto definition.

Prompt 4

What changes do I need to make in microservices-demo to replace the in-cluster Redis cache with Google Memorystore?

Frequently asked questions

What is microservices-demo?

A sample e-commerce app from Google built with 11 microservices in 5 languages on Kubernetes, designed as a hands-on learning reference for cloud-native architecture and Google Cloud tools.

What language is microservices-demo written in?

Mainly Go. The stack also includes Go, Python, Java.

How hard is microservices-demo to set up?

Setup difficulty is rated hard, with roughly 1h+ to a first successful run.

Who is microservices-demo for?

Mainly developer.

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