Design and Development of a Soundscape Web Application: A Personalized Music Streaming Platform

Abstract

The increasing consumption of web music has called for the creation of scalable and personalized streaming services. This report documents the design and implementation of a Soundscape Web Application, which replicates key features of leading music streaming services while adding new features for enhancing user experience. The project has a responsive user interface and experience, a scalable backend system, support for real-time playback, and playlist management features. Implemented with modern web development tools and cloud computing technologies, the application is a viable means of launching a competitive, user-centric audio streaming service. Initial findings indicate that the application is extremely usable and functional, with tremendous potential for future expansion, especially in personalization and social integration.

Introduction

Digital transformation has reshaped the music industry, with streaming platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, and Amazon Music becoming dominant. However, these services are closed-source, limiting innovation and educational use. This project introduces Soundscape, an open-source web app that emulates major streaming platforms while offering customizability, modular design, and educational value.

Project Goals

• Recreate key features of music streaming apps

• Enable future development and learning via an open-source, modular architecture

• Prioritize performance, security, and user experience

Core Features

• User registration and login

• Music playback (play, pause, skip)

• Playlist creation and management

• Song search and music library

• Responsive UI with minimal design

• Secure sessions and cloud storage

Technologies Used

Development Methodology

• Agile development with sprints:

  1. UI and routing setup

  2. Backend, Firebase, and auth integration

  3. Playlist and playback features

  4. Testing and deployment

• Security measures:

  • Bcrypt password hashing

  • JWT-based sessions

  • API access control middleware

  • HTTPS deployment

Architecture & Database

• Client-server model with RESTful APIs

• React Context API for state management

• Firebase used to store:

  • User credentials (users)

  • Song metadata (songs)

  • Playlist mapping (playlists)

  • Session data (sessions)

Results & Performance

• UI/UX Feedback (from 15 testers):

  • 93% found it intuitive

  • 87% appreciated the professional design

  • Users suggested a dark/light mode toggle

• Playback:

  • Smooth performance using HTML5 <audio> tags

  • Minor buffering in cloud deployment indicates future improvement area

• Feature Validation:

  • All core features like auth, playlist creation, playback, and search were completed

  • System scaled well on Firebase backend

  • Responsive design worked across devices

Deployment

• Deployed on Vercel (frontend) and Heroku (backend)

• Used GitHub Actions for CI/CD pipelines

• Secured environment with environment variables

Conclusion

Soundscape Web App illustrates how one can make an interactive, secure, and scalable music streaming web application based on open-source tools. As much as the latest version contains major features, the project forms a solid foundation to further work in the areas of: 1) Machine Learning: Algorithm-based personalized recommendations via TensorFlow.js or Python microservices. 2) P2P Sharing: Social functionality and real-time collaborative playlists. 3) Mobile Application: Support through React Native implementation of a native application. 4) Monetization Model: Freemium subscription model with advertisements and premium access. This app is not only a proof-of-concept for academic and prototype-level deployments but also offers rich learning in full-stack development, database design, and scalable deployment methodologies

References

[1] Spotify Developers. “Web Playback SDK.” https://developer.spotify.com [2] Google Firebase. “Firebase Documentation.” https://firebase.google.com/docs [3] React.js. “A JavaScript Library for Building User Interfaces.” https://reactjs.org [4] Node.js Foundation. “Node.js Docs.” https://nodejs.org/en/docs [5] JWT.io. “JSON Web Tokens.” https://jwt.io [6] Bcrypt.js. “Password Hashing for Node.js.” https://www.npmjs.com/package/bcrypt

Copyright

Copyright © 2025 Akash Barman, Debashish Dey, Deepanjan Das, Samarendra Das, Sonali Bhowmik, Anunay Ghosh, Dr. Sumit Nandi. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.