Why Build a Hackathon Platform?
Internal hackathons are powerful drivers of innovation, team building, and employee engagement. But managing them effectively requires more than spreadsheets and email chains. After seeing firsthand the challenges companies face organizing these events, I built a comprehensive hackathon management platform that’s self-hosted, open source, and production-ready.
The goal was simple: Launch internal hackathons in minutes, not weeks.
The Technology Stack
I chose Go and the Buffalo framework for several reasons:
- Go’s Performance: Excellent concurrency model and low resource consumption
- Buffalo’s Productivity: Rails-like developer experience with hot reload and generators
- PostgreSQL Reliability: Robust ACID compliance for audit logging and data integrity
- Self-Hosted Philosophy: Companies maintain complete control over their IP and project submissions
Why Buffalo?
While Go is known for microservices and CLI tools, Buffalo brings a full-featured web framework experience to the ecosystem. It provides:
- Integrated asset pipeline with webpack
- Database migrations and ORM (Pop)
- Session management and CSRF protection
- HTML templating with Plush
- Hot reload during development
For a platform with both API endpoints and a rich admin interface, Buffalo was the perfect fit.
Architecture & Design Decisions
Repository Pattern
I implemented a clean repository pattern to separate business logic from data access:
type HackathonRepository interface {
Create(h *models.Hackathon) error
Update(h *models.Hackathon) error
FindByID(id uuid.UUID) (*models.Hackathon, error)
List(page, perPage int) ([]models.Hackathon, error)
Delete(id uuid.UUID) error
}
This abstraction makes testing straightforward and keeps the codebase maintainable as requirements evolve.
Database Design Highlights
Audit Logging: Every user action is logged with timestamp, IP address, and user agent. This creates an immutable audit trail for compliance and debugging.
File Storage: Files are stored directly in PostgreSQL as binary data. While this approach has trade-offs, it simplifies deployment (no S3 configuration required) and ensures transactional consistency.
Key Features Breakdown
Role-Based Access Control
The platform implements a two-tier system:
- Owners: Full administrative access—manage users, create hackathons, view audit logs
- Hackers: Participants who can create projects, join teams, and upload presentations
This simple yet effective model covers most organizational structures without over-engineering.
Team Formation & Project Management
One of the most complex features is team management. The platform allows:
- Project Creation: One project per user per hackathon (enforced via unique constraint)
- Team Membership: Users can join projects, forming cross-functional teams
- Presentation Tracking: Projects can opt-in to present, with order management
- File Uploads: Teams can upload project materials, stored securely with metadata
The data model ensures referential integrity while allowing flexible team compositions.
Comprehensive Admin Dashboard
The admin interface provides real-time insights:
- User statistics and management
- Hackathon overview with status tracking
- Project monitoring across all events
- Audit log viewer with filtering
- Presentation dashboard for event day
- Password policy configuration
This “single pane of glass” approach reduces operational overhead for hackathon organizers.
Security First
Security wasn’t an afterthought—it’s baked into every layer:
Authentication: - bcrypt password hashing with per-user salts - Session-based authentication with secure cookies - CSRF token validation on all state-changing operations
Authorization: - Middleware-based role checking - Resource ownership validation - Protected admin routes
Audit Trail: - Comprehensive logging of all user actions - IP address and user agent tracking - Immutable audit log for forensics
Password Policies: - Configurable minimum length - Uppercase, number, and special character requirements - Forced password reset for new accounts
Development Experience
I invested heavily in developer experience with a comprehensive Makefile featuring 25+ commands:
make dev # Start with hot reload
make test # Run test suite
make coverage # Generate coverage report
make docker-up # Launch with Docker Compose
make db-migrate # Run migrations
make db-reset # Reset database
make lint # Run linters
This streamlined workflow means new contributors can be productive in minutes.
Deployment & Production Readiness
The platform supports multiple deployment strategies:
Docker Compose: Single command deployment with all dependencies
docker-compose up
Binary Deployment: Compile to a single static binary
buffalo build
./bin/app
Database Migrations: Version-controlled schema changes using Buffalo’s migration system
The Dockerfile is optimized with multi-stage builds, reducing the final image size while maintaining all necessary dependencies.
Real-World Usage Patterns
Through testing and feedback, several usage patterns emerged:
- Pre-Hackathon: Admins create the event, participants register and form preliminary teams
- During Hackathon: Teams finalize projects, upload materials, opt-in for presentations
- Presentation Day: Admin dashboard provides order and status for each presenting team
- Post-Event: Audit logs provide insights into participation and engagement
The platform handles the full lifecycle, from event creation to post-event analysis.
Open Source Impact
The project is fully open source under the MIT license, hosted on GitHub with:
- Comprehensive README with quick start guide
- CI/CD pipeline with automated tests
- Contribution guidelines
- Issue templates for bugs and feature requests
- Active maintenance and updates
My goal is to help other developers and organizations run better hackathons without reinventing the wheel.
Future Roadmap
Several enhancements are planned:
- Voting System: Allow participants to vote on projects
- Judges Dashboard: Dedicated interface for scoring presentations
- Email Notifications: Automated reminders and updates
- Advanced Analytics: Participation trends and engagement metrics
- OAuth Integration: Support for SSO with common providers
Key Takeaways
Building a production-ready web application with Go and Buffalo taught me several valuable lessons:
- Framework Choice Matters: Buffalo provided the right balance of structure and flexibility for this use case
- Security is Continuous: Every feature required security considerations from the start
- Developer Experience Pays Off: Time invested in tooling and documentation accelerates development
- Database Design is Critical: Proper constraints and indexes prevent bugs and improve performance
- Audit Everything: Comprehensive logging is invaluable for debugging and compliance
Getting Started
The platform is available on GitHub and can be deployed in minutes:
git clone https://github.com/arxdsilva/hackathon
cd hackathon
make docker-up
Visit the repository for full documentation, setup guides, and contribution guidelines.
Conclusion
Building the Hackathon Management Platform was an exercise in balancing multiple concerns: performance, security, usability, and developer experience. By leveraging Go’s strengths and Buffalo’s productivity features, I created a platform that’s both powerful and maintainable.
Whether you’re running hackathons at your company or just interested in building production Go web applications, I hope this project and post provide useful insights and patterns.
The code is open source—feel free to use it, learn from it, or contribute back. And if you’re running hackathons at your organization, give it a try and let me know how it works for you!
Links: - GitHub Repository - Buffalo Framework - Live Demo (Coming Soon)
Questions or feedback? Schedule a call or reach out on LinkedIn or X.