When designing an application, one of the most important decisions is the architecture: should you go for a monolithic approach or microservices? In this article, we analyze the differences, advantages, and disadvantages of each model, with examples and diagrams.
What is a monolithic architecture?
A monolithic application is built as a single, indivisible block. All functionalities (frontend, backend, database, API) are managed within the same project and often the same process.
Advantages:
- Simpler initial development and deployment.
- Easier debugging and testing in small environments.
- Less communication overhead between components.
Disadvantages:
- Harder to scale granularly.
- Any change requires redeploying the entire application.
- As it grows, the codebase can become hard to manage (spaghetti code).
What is a microservices architecture?
Microservices architecture splits the application into independent services, each responsible for a specific functionality. Each microservice can be developed, tested, deployed, and scaled independently.
Advantages:
- Independent scalability of each service.
- Each team can work on a microservice without interfering with others.
- Greater resilience: a failure in one service does not block the entire application.
Disadvantages:
- Greater infrastructural complexity (orchestration, networking, logging).
- Managing communication between services (API, message broker).
- More complex debugging and testing.
When to choose Monolith?
- Small projects or MVPs.
- Small teams.
- Limited scalability requirements.
When to choose Microservices?
- Large or fast-growing projects.
- Multiple specialized teams.
- Need to scale only certain parts of the application.
Conclusion
There is no one-size-fits-all solution: the choice depends on the complexity of the project, team size, and scalability goals. The important thing is to be aware of the trade-offs and choose the architecture that best fits your needs.