Case Study - Building a High-Performance Testimonial Platform

Overview

VouchWall needed a testimonial collection and display platform that could compete with established players like Testimonial.to and Senja, but with a focus on performance, developer experience, and beautiful design. We partnered with them to build a full-stack SaaS solution from the ground up.

The platform enables businesses to collect text, video, and audio testimonials through customizable forms, manage them with an intuitive dashboard, and display them via embeddable widgets that integrate seamlessly with any website.

Technical Architecture

We chose Elixir and Phoenix for the backend, leveraging their exceptional performance and fault-tolerance characteristics. TimescaleDB powers the real-time analytics engine, providing instant insights while handling millions of events efficiently.

• Elixir / Phoenix 1.8
• React 19 / TypeScript
• TimescaleDB Analytics
• Cloudflare R2 Storage
• FFmpeg Video Processing
• Inertia.js

Key Features Delivered

We built a comprehensive feature set that covers the entire testimonial lifecycle - from collection through display and analytics.

• Multi-format testimonials - Text, video, and audio with browser-based recording
• Conversational forms - Tally-inspired one question per screen for higher completion rates
• Video pipeline - Self-hosted transcoding with multi-resolution output and automatic transcription
• Embeddable widgets - Wall of Love, Carousel, Badge, and Floating widgets with full customization
• Real-time analytics - Form views, submissions, widget engagement, and video watch time
• Email automation - Scheduled testimonial requests with reminder sequences

Performance Optimization

Performance was a core requirement. We achieved widget load times under 100ms through aggressive optimization: lazy loading, CDN edge delivery, and minimal JavaScript bundles. Video delivery uses Cloudflare R2 for zero egress fees.

TimescaleDB's continuous aggregates pre-compute hourly and daily metrics, ensuring dashboard queries return instantly even with millions of analytics events.

Multi-Tenancy & Security

The platform uses a scope-based multi-tenancy pattern that ensures complete data isolation between accounts. Every database query is automatically filtered by account_id, preventing accidental cross-tenant data access. Rate limiting, spam detection, and GDPR compliance features protect both the platform and its users.