Linkspark - The URL Shortener Application

📌 Overview

This application provides a URL shortening service with detailed analytics for tracking link clicks over time. It includes a React-based frontend and a Spring Boot-powered backend, ensuring a seamless and efficient experience for users.

---

🚀 Features

• 🔗 Shorten Long URLs: Generate compact and shareable links.
• 📊 Click Analytics: Track link usage with a detailed statistics dashboard.
• 🔒 Secure Authentication: JWT Token-based authorization.
• ⏳ Session Management: Ensures secure and persistent user sessions with token-based authentication.
• ☁️ Cloud Deployment: Hosted with Docker and various cloud services.

---

🏗️ Technologies Used

🔹 Frontend (React + Vite)

• React.JS – UI development.
• React Query – Data fetching and caching.
• React Router – Navigation management.
• Tailwind CSS – Modern, responsive styling.
• Chart.js – Click statistics visualization.
• React Icons – Beautiful icons for UI enhancement.
• And Others...

🔹 Backend (Spring Boot)

• Spring Boot – REST API development.
• Spring Security – Authentication & authorization.
• Spring Data JPA – Database ORM.
• PostgreSQL – Persistent database storage.
• JWT – Secure API authentication.
• Lombok – Boilerplate code reduction.

🔹 Deployment & DevOps

• Docker – For Containerization.
• Cloud Providers (i.e., Neon, Render, Netlify) – Hosting services.

---

🎯 How to Run Locally

📦 Backend

# Clone the backend repository
git clone <backend-repo-url>
cd backend

# Configure environment variables in .env file
# Set up run configuration by locating & setting .env file at runtime 

# Build and run
./mvnw spring-boot:run

💻 Frontend

# Clone the frontend repository
git clone <frontend-repo-url>
cd frontend

# Install dependencies
npm install

# [Important]Create a .env file at root location and set the variables
VITE_SERVER_URL=http://localhost:<Backend_Port>
VITE_CLIENT_URL=http://localhost:<Frontend_Port>

# Run the app
npm run dev

---

🌍 Hosting & Deployment

• Backend: Hosted on Render
• Frontend: Deployed on Netlify
• Database: PostgreSQL hosted on Neon

The application is hosted on Netlify for testing and exploring. You can access it here:

🔗 Live URL: https://linkspark.netlify.app

Netlify provides seamless CI/CD, automatic deployments from the Git repository, and optimizations for fast performance.