Nearbly — Local Business Discovery & Reviews App
Nearbly is a native iOS and Android app for discovering local businesses, reading and writing reviews, browsing photos, and booking reservations, with a companion dashboard for business owners to manage their listing and respond to customers.
Project Overview
Nearbly helps people discover trustworthy local businesses — restaurants, salons, services, and more — through reviews, photos, and real-time availability.
Customers can search by category or location, filter results by price, distance, and rating, and make reservations directly from a business profile.
Business owners get a companion dashboard to claim their listing, keep business details up to date, respond to reviews, and manage incoming reservation requests.
Key Features
Technologies Used
Challenges
Delivering fast, relevant search results across large volumes of business listings and reviews
Combining geospatial search with category, price, and rating filters efficiently
Preventing fake reviews and maintaining trust in ratings
Handling high-resolution photo uploads at scale without slowing down the app
Giving business owners real-time visibility into reviews and reservation requests
Solutions
Implemented Elasticsearch for fast full-text business search combined with PostGIS for geospatial queries
Built a combined filtering engine supporting category, price range, distance, and "open now" status in a single query
Added review verification tied to check-ins and purchase/visit confirmation to reduce fake reviews
Used AWS S3 with on-the-fly image optimization for fast photo uploads and delivery
Built a real-time business owner dashboard with push notifications for new reviews and reservation requests
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