System Design Interview — An Insider’s Guide by Alex Xu or Designing Data-Intensive Applications? Which is better?

Hello Devs, preparing for a system design interview can feel overwhelming as it's a very vast topic with no end. Whether you're aiming for a FAANG role or any company with large-scale distributed systems, you need more than coding skills --- you need to show that you can architect real-world systems that scale, stay reliable, and meet evolving business requirements. And, when it comes to mastering System Design, two of the most recommended resources are Designing Data-Intensive Applications (DDIA) by Martin Kleppmann and System Design Interview --- An Insider's Guide (SDI) by Alex Xu. Both are widely praised, but they serve different purposes. If you're pressed for time, which one should you pick? And how do they fit into a complete preparation strategy? Let's break it down. 1. What Each Book Is About? Before going anywhere, let's try to understand what each book is about. Which one is better to learn System Design fundamentals, and which one is suited for System Design Interview prepa