Microservices vs. Monolithic Architectures

Microservices vs. Monolithic Architectures

Architecture plays a vital role in scaling, maintaining, and efficiency of software applications. Two paradigms in this space are microservices and monolithic architectures, which are two completely separate approaches that come with strengths and weaknesses. 


Monolithic Architectures

    This is an application that is built and fleshed out as a singular unit, with all components unified together. These involve the UI, the business logic, the data, all connected and deployed with each other together. 

    The advantages of this infrastructure is that it is simple, allowing for deployment and testing to be straightforward considering it is one working codebase. Second is performance, since the calls between components are in memory this means that the communication between them is typically faster. Lastly since all components are unified in one place, debugging and tracing issues is typically easier. These types of systems are cheaper and faster to develop initially. 

    Disadvantages of monolithic architectures are very adverse, the biggest being scalability issues. Scaling a monolithic structure involves completely replicating the entire application to scale one or multiple components of it. Second is the agility of the system, any changes that are done means redeploying the entire system which slows down iteration. In the same vein, changes in one part of the system can have a rippling effect on other components, which means that things are sensitive.


Microservices

    A microservice architecture breaks apart the components of an application into smaller working services. Each of these services are independent of each other, and communicate with each other through APIs. The important resulting advantages of this is that these microservice systems are extremely scalable and flexible. Each different component can be scaled or changed without having a resulting rippling effect. Teams of each service can use different languages, databases, and frameworks for each of their services which means each service can be optimized. And lastly, since each service can be worked on independently, there are less conflicts between software changes, merges, and allows for faster development.


    Disadvantages of such a platform is the complexity of it. Managing all of the different services involves challenges such as network latency, discovery of the services to connect to each other since the services are dynamic, and distributing the data since each service has its own database. Another point is the cost of the infrastructure, which is typically more complex. This infrastructure typically requires more containers, monitoring, and orchestration between the entire system which all add significant costs, not to mention a system that benefits more from being distributed means that it is most likely innately more complex anyway. Debugging is an issue between services as well, since a bug can be from different services and is tricky to be traced through the system. 


Summary

A monolithic system is best for small scale applications, or building out a MVP to get the business started. A small company with less resources benefits more from this simpler architecture, and since speed to market is important for newer businesses, it means that they benefit more from monolithic architectures. 

A microservice is best for anticipation of rapid growth and necessary scaling for the future. An application that has diverse components fits better with microservices, since independent scaling and deployment better fits this need. A team that is experienced with distributed systems and can monitor and prevent issues between microservices can maintain them more effectively. 


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