Microservice vs Monolith: The Honest Guide

The Hype Cycle

Microservices are the "industry standard" for big tech, so every startup thinks they need them from day one. This leads to what we call "Distributed Monoliths" — all the complexity of microservices with none of the benefits.

The Monolith (The misunderstood hero)

A monolith is a single unified code unit.

• Pros: Easy to deploy, easy to test, no network latency between components.
• Cons: Can become a "big ball of mud" if not structured well.

Microservices (The powerful beast)

Splitting your app into independent services.

• Pros: Independent scaling, team autonomy, technology flexibility.
• Cons: Massive operational overhead, complex debugging, networking headaches.

When should you switch?

We follow the "Monolith First" approach. Start with a well-structured monolith. Only when a specific part of your application has vastly different scaling needs (e.g., an image processing service among a sea of simple CRUD operations), do you spin it off.

Conclusion

Scale is a high-class problem. Don't solve problems you don't have yet. Build your monolith with clear internal boundaries, and the transition to microservices will be easy if the day ever comes.