Scaling Airbnb’s identity graph with a unified knowledge graph infrastructure

Short summary

Airbnb built an internal, multi-tenant graph infrastructure platform to consolidate fragmented graph adoption across teams. Their identity graph handles 7B nodes, 11B edges, and 5M daily additions using JanusGraph + DynamoDB to meet strict latency and stability requirements for Trust & Safety applications.

• •Evolved through three architectures (relational DB → third-party SaaS → internal platform) to solve scalability, query complexity, long-tail latency, and stability challenges
• •Identity graph powers fraud detection and account linking; grew from fragmented team approaches (SQL relations, offline warehouses, DIY open source, PaaS) to centralized infrastructure
• •Selected JanusGraph + DynamoDB for distributed scalability, expressive query capabilities, operational fit, and extensible codebase

Generated with AI, which can make mistakes.