Born in Istanbul, Turkey, Xue never needed to prioritize learning English as a language until he pursued further education at Boğaziçi University, where his Mechanical Engineering coursework was delivered in English. After graduating and working as an IT manager at a multinational import-export company, Xue moved to Canada and founded his own tech consulting firm. By now, he had started exploring various language exchange platforms such as Tandem as a learner; however, he soon realized there was no perfect platform for his needs.
Thus, the idea behind LangX was born.
Understanding the product
LangX is an open-source language exchange platform that allows users to learn new languages by interacting and chatting with users from different parts of the world. It allows you to:
Sign up: Create an account and pick the languages you can teach and the languages you want to learn.
Find partners: Browse through their community of language learners to find the perfect learner-teacher match.
Start exchanging: Start your language exchange journey by teaching your native language and learning a new one from folks around the world.
Around this simple philosophy, the LangX team has developed various features to gain the best possible language-learning experience, which include (but are not limited to) the following:
A custom-built community that allows users to discover other members of the platform
Simplified chat experience that allows users to interact one-on-one using text, images, and audio
Connection preferences that offer filtering options to find the most suitable language exchange partners
Profile insights to let users get a better understanding of their learning habits and progress
Badges that are given for specific achievements and can be featured on the user’s profile
Building the solution
Currently, LangX has been built using Ionic Angular, a cross-platform app framework that allows developers to create web and mobile apps via a single codebase. To accelerate the development process, Xue evaluated various Backend-as-a-Service platforms, including Supabase and Appwrite. Xue preferred Appwrite’s user experience to other options; however, it was Appwrite’s highly active and supportive community that convinced him. He remembers posting a challenge he faced on Appwrite’s Discord server and gaining a resolution in less than 24 hours, solidifying his decision.
LangX has been built-up and driven by Appwrite from Day 1. The team leveraged Appwrite Databases to store all the app’s data, including user information, chat rooms, languages, messages, reports, and visits. They leveraged Appwrite Realtime to enable synchronous chatting between users and track their online status. Any binary files, such as audio and images in the chats and on user profiles, are stored and managed via Appwrite Storage. The team has also developed multiple Appwrite Functions to manage unseen messages between users, track daily streaks to feature on user profiles, and send push notifications via Firebase Cloud Messaging, which they intend to migrate to Appwrite Messaging soon.
Some of the benefits of Appwrite that the LangX team appreciates are:
Simple product experience: Appwrite’s easy-to-use interface allowed their team to set up and begin using the platform without much hassle.
Comprehensive suite of offerings: Appwrite’s wide range of products, including Databases, Auth, Storage, Functions, and Realtime, fulfilled the majority of the team’s backend requirements.
Active community: Appwrite’s community on Discord and GitHub has been a massive boon to the team, allowing them to collaborate more easily with the Appwrite team and quickly resolve any issues.
In Xue’s own words,
When exploring options for the backend of my project, I sought a solution that would offer flexibility without unexpected costs. My search led me to consider open-source self-hosted alternatives, ultimately bringing me to Appwrite. With its comprehensive suite of services including authentication, database management, storage, and serverless functions, Appwrite emerged as an ideal choice for my needs. What truly impressed me was not just its robust features, but also the supportive community behind it. The Appwrite team and its community, easily accessible through Discord, promptly addressed all my inquiries, regardless of their complexity.
What’s next for LangX
So far, LangX has been steadily growing, having garnered
5000+ registered users
12,500 unique visitors in the last 30 days
324 GB bandwidth used on their Appwrite project in the last 90 days
7 Million requests on their Appwrite project in the last 90 days
With that said, the team has a number of features in the works, which include:
Giving and receiving rating evaluations from learning exchange partners to help improve the quality of interactions in the community
A Language Copilot to provide personalized feedback and language suggestions when interacting with other users via AI (this will be a paid feature)
A new LangX token to create a structured reward system for users, incentivizing learning on the platform
Xue and LangX have had an inspiring journey (he has grown to become a polyglot, too), and we appreciate how they have leveraged Appwrite to empower language learners around the globe. Learn more about their work and team by visiting their website and documentation. You can also contribute to the development of LangX by visiting their GitHub organization and Discord community.
