Cantilever Music

Cantilever is a curated streaming service for independent music, featuring a small selection of exceptional albums paired with contextual stories and artist reflections. Avinto built the iOS and Android apps along with the custom backend, with product design from Cantilever working as one team.

Project Scope

Mobile and Web
Custom backend and API layer
Secure media delivery system
Content management infrastructure
Authentication and user management
Payment integration and subscription

Problem

Artists earn little from streaming platforms, while algorithm-driven recommendations limit music discovery and reduce meaningful listener engagement.

Solution

Cantilever offers curated music discovery and fairer artist payments, creating a more sustainable and listener-focused streaming experience.

Core Functionality

1. Album centric browsing

Users explore a curated catalog of full albums rather than individual tracks.

2. Track playback

High‑quality streaming with background audio support, media‑session integration, and persistent play state.

3. Artist reflections & editorial

Accompanying narratives and comments enrich each release.

4. Secure authentication

5. Subscription/payment handling

Stripe/in‑app purchases, recurring billing, trial management and webhooks.

6. Content delivery

Signed, time‑limited URLs to audio assets, ensuring only entitled users can play tracks.

Core backend components

1. API Layer

Django REST API for authentication, catalog, playback rights, subscriptions, and editorial content.

2. Authentication

JWT-based sessions, role/permission management, and social/email logins.

3. Media Delivery

Signed, time-limited URLs from Azure Blob with playback-token entitlement checks.

4. Subscription

Stripe integration via web hooks; Celery handles billing cycles, trials, and notifications.

5. Background Tasks

Celery + Redis for uploads, newsletters, indexing, analytics, and caching.

6. Analytics

Dedicated app capturing play events and usage data, surfaced in dashboards.

7. Catalog

PostgreSQL for content, Elasticsearch for fast search, and a lightweight CMS for curation.

8. Deployment

Docker + Kubernetes with autoscaling, health checks, and horizontal scaling for stable continuous playback.

Challenges

1. App Store submission hurdles

The team faced unexpected delays during the review and approval process in the Apple App Review, requiring multiple rounds of compliance fixes, metadata adjustments, and refinements to in-app flows.

2. Time constraints

The project operated under a tight delivery window, demanding rapid iteration across mobile apps, backend systems, and subscription integrations.