Name: Vetora
Author: Vetora

Question 1

What is Vetora?

Accepted Answer

Vetora is a free, browser-based system design simulator that lets engineers design distributed architectures on a visual canvas, run discrete event simulations with realistic traffic, and receive AI-powered feedback across 5 architecture pillars: scalability, reliability, performance, cost efficiency, and operational excellence.

Question 2

How does the system design simulation work?

Accepted Answer

Vetora uses a custom discrete event simulation (DES) engine with a heapq priority queue. You design your system using 14 component types (load balancers, services, caches, databases, event streams, workers, etc.), configure traffic patterns (constant, burst, diurnal), and hit play. The engine models realistic latency distributions, circuit breakers, retry logic, cache warming, replication lag, and Poisson arrivals to produce accurate performance metrics.

Question 3

Is Vetora free to use?

Accepted Answer

Yes, Vetora offers a generous free tier that includes access to 3 Arena challenges, 3 daily attempts, the full simulation engine, and AI-powered architecture grading. A Pro plan ($19/month) unlocks all challenges, unlimited attempts, priority AI reports, and model solutions.

Question 4

What types of systems can I simulate with Vetora?

Accepted Answer

Vetora supports simulating any distributed system architecture including URL shorteners (TinyURL), e-commerce checkout flows, real-time chat systems, ride-hailing geo-matching, social feed fanout, and more. The platform includes 7 pre-built templates and lets you create custom designs with 14 component types connected by typed edges with configurable contracts.

Question 5

How is Vetora different from drawing tools like Excalidraw or Lucidchart?

Accepted Answer

Unlike static diagramming tools, Vetora actually simulates your architecture. When you connect a load balancer to services to a database, Vetora runs real traffic through those connections — modeling queue depths, thread pool saturation, cache hit rates, and propagation delays. You see exactly where your system breaks under load, not just what it looks like on paper.