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URL: https://dev.to/guadalupe182/building-pos-lite-a-full-stack-point-of-sale-system-with-spring-boot-react-and-aws-4eh6

⇱ Building POS Lite: A Full Stack Point of Sale System with Spring Boot, React and AWS - DEV Community

Introduction

Over the last months, I have been building POS Lite, a full stack point of sale system designed for small businesses, stores and gyms.

The goal of this project is not only to build a working application, but also to practice and demonstrate real-world software engineering skills: backend development, frontend development, authentication, database design, deployment and cloud infrastructure.

I wanted to build something closer to a real business application, not just a simple portfolio project.

Tech Stack

POS Lite is built with:

  • Java
  • Spring Boot
  • Spring Security
  • JWT Authentication
  • PostgreSQL
  • React / Next.js
  • Docker
  • AWS EC2
  • Vercel
  • Cloudflare

What POS Lite Does

POS Lite includes features commonly needed in a point of sale system:

  • Product management
  • Category management
  • Inventory control
  • Sales tracking
  • User authentication
  • Dashboard metrics
  • Low stock alerts
  • Barcode scanner support
  • Sales and inventory reports

The idea was to create a system that could be useful in a real-world context, especially for small businesses that need a simple way to manage sales and inventory.

Why I Built This Project

Many beginner projects are useful for learning, but they usually stop at basic CRUD operations.

With POS Lite, I wanted to go further and work on problems that are closer to real software development:

  • How should the backend API be structured?
  • How should authentication be handled?
  • How should the frontend communicate with the backend?
  • How should the database model support real business flows?
  • How should the app be deployed?
  • How can the project be presented professionally?

This project helped me connect different parts of full stack development into one complete application.

Backend Overview

The backend was built with Spring Boot and exposes REST APIs for the main business modules.

Some of the backend responsibilities include:

  • Managing products and categories
  • Handling sales operations
  • Protecting endpoints with authentication
  • Connecting to PostgreSQL
  • Returning structured data to the frontend

One of the most important parts of the backend was keeping the structure clean enough so that new features could be added without making the project difficult to maintain.

Frontend Overview

The frontend was built with React / Next.js.

The main goal was to create an interface that feels practical for a real user, not just a technical demo.

Some of the frontend modules include:

  • Login
  • Dashboard
  • Inventory
  • Sales
  • Product forms
  • Reports
  • Barcode scanner flow

I also focused on making the UI clear enough for a business user, because a point of sale system should be fast and easy to use.

Deployment

The project uses a cloud-based deployment setup:

  • Backend deployed on AWS EC2
  • Frontend deployed on Vercel
  • Domain and DNS managed with Cloudflare
  • Docker used for containerization

This part helped me understand more about environment variables, server configuration, deployment errors, frontend/backend communication and production-like setups.

What I Learned

Building POS Lite helped me improve in several areas:

  • Designing REST APIs
  • Working with authentication
  • Structuring a full stack project
  • Connecting frontend and backend
  • Managing database entities
  • Deploying applications to the cloud
  • Thinking about software from a product perspective

The biggest lesson was that building a complete project teaches things that isolated tutorials usually do not cover.

What I Will Share Next

This is the first post in a small series about building POS Lite.

In future posts, I want to write about:

  1. How I designed the backend with Spring Boot
  2. How I handled authentication with JWT
  3. How I built the frontend with React / Next.js
  4. How I deployed the app with AWS EC2, Docker, Vercel and Cloudflare
  5. What I learned from building a real full stack project

Final Thoughts

POS Lite is still evolving, but it has already helped me practice many important parts of full stack development.

I am using this series to document the process, share what I learn and continue improving the project over time.

Thanks for reading.