The user can add other users as friends and see their current status (online, offline, in a game, and so forth)

[dmalac]

how to do this - maybe a button on each user's profile that adds that user as a friend of the logged-in user?

[greedymelon]

We can use Kafka, when a user connects or disconnects, the chat can send something to the profile "username status chat", "username status disconnected" and probably every applications can. I will add: What is easier from a front and prospective? have a friend list only in the profile page (if you click your own profile you can see your friend in there) or have them somewhere else? the status is easier to add on the list? or you it is easear to have on the profile page of every single user (having someone as a friend or not doesn't change what you see)?

[dmalac]

What I meant with the question was how will the adding someone as friend work. I currently have the backend working (adding a friend; still need to add an "unfriend" function though), the getProfileById() function returns a list of friends for each specific user.