Architecting a Modern Music Streaming Platform: Lessons from Building a Spotify Clone (opens in new tab)

I’ve spent the last few weeks building a high-fidelity Spotify clone using the 2026 tech stack: Next.js 16, Prisma 7, and NextAuth v5. While most clones focus on the UI "look and feel," my goal was different: I wanted to build a production-ready system that handles real-time music data from the Deezer API while maintaining a performant, type-safe architecture. The Architectural Challenge The biggest hurdle in building a media-heavy application isn't the sidebar or the navigation—it’s data nor...