What is Microservices?
Microservices architecture structures an application as a collection of small, independent services that communicate over APIs.
Microservices architecture structures an application as a collection of small, independent services that communicate over APIs. Each service is owned by a single team, deployable independently, and organized around a specific business capability.
Benefits: independent deployment, technology flexibility, team autonomy, fault isolation, and scalability for specific components.
Costs: distributed systems complexity, network latency, data consistency challenges, operational overhead, and debugging difficulty across service boundaries.
Microservices are not inherently better than monoliths. They trade local complexity (large codebase) for distributed complexity (network, consistency, observability" class="text-cyan-400 hover:text-cyan-300 underline underline-offset-2 decoration-cyan-500/30 transition-colors">observability).
Why It Matters
The monolith vs. microservices decision is one of the highest-stakes architectural choices. Wrong choice in either direction costs years of engineering effort. The decision should be driven by economics and team structure, not technology fashion.
Frequently Asked Questions
When should you use microservices?
When you have multiple teams needing independent deployment, different scaling requirements per component, or need technology flexibility. If one team can manage the whole codebase, a monolith is usually better.
Related Terms
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