Difference Between Microservices And Monolithic Architecture

With the advent of modern technologies, it has become quite easy to develop applications. However, these applications are built using different technologies. Hence, there is a need to understand the difference between microservices and monolithic architecture so that you can decide which one fits best for your application requirements.

Microservices Architecture

Microservices architecture is a software development technique involving several small services, each running in its own process and communicating with each other using an API. These services can be built in different languages using different technologies on different platforms. Microservices architecture aims to improve software system flexibility, maintainability, testability and scalability.

Advantages of Microservices Architecture

Microservices are an architectural style that separates an application into multiple small components called microservices. Each microservice is independently deployable and can be scaled up or down during runtime. 

It makes it easier to scale your applications without worrying about the dependencies between the different services. Microservices are also easier to develop because the development team can work on their own part of a single application using their preferred language and framework instead of using one monolithic architecture with a single programming language where all developers may not have experience in that particular programming language or framework.

Disadvantages of Microservices Architecture

Microservices architecture, however, has its own set of disadvantages. The first one is that it’s more complex than monolithic architecture. If you have a small and simple application, it may not be worth the extra complexity of microservices architecture over monolithic architecture. In this case, it would be better to stick with a simple service-oriented approach, but if you’re building complex applications, then microservices are definitely going to be your best bet.

Monolithic Architecture

Monolithic architecture is a single code base responsible for the entire application. It’s a single application built to solve a single problem and follows the classic waterfall approach to development. In this model, your software stack has no distinct layers or tiers; all of your functionality resides within one piece of code.

Advantages of Monolithic Architecture

Many of the advantages of monolithic architecture are related to its easier-to-maintain nature. When you’re dealing with a monolithic code base, you don’t have to worry about new features breaking older ones or vice versa. Adding new functionality doesn’t require additional testing and deployment processes because they’re all done under one roof. 

Moreover, scaling your entire system is easy when everything’s in one place: if you need more capacity for a particular service or function, all you need to do is deploy more instances of that service or function. In contrast, scaling a distributed system requires greater diligence since any change may affect other components in unexpected ways.

As per a composable architecture solution expert, Uniform, “Because all the software comes from a single vendor, you need not shop around for each and every component.”

Disadvantages of Monolithic Architecture

One of the main disadvantages of a monolithic architecture is that it has a single point of failure. If something goes wrong with the application, then you’ll need to fix it. However, if you have several microservices running in separate containers, then they can be deployed on different servers and they will continue to work even if one fails or crashes. Monolithic architectures are also harder to scale than microservices because they require more resources and time to be scaled up or down when necessary.

Microservices and monolithic architecture are two different approaches to software development. These approaches have their own advantages and disadvantages, which makes them suitable for different types of applications.