Microservices or monolithic application? Advantages and disadvantages of digital solutions
The monolithic application is an increasingly rare form of application development. It is being replaced by microservices, but is it right? We present the biggest advantages and disadvantages of both these solutions!
Microservices – advantages
A great advantage of microservices is that they are characterised by high performance. Consequently, they are the right choice for large systems that are oriented towards continuous development in terms of web application development. High scalability and a relatively simple process of implementing changes in individual elements influence the flexibility of this solution and make it an increasingly popular option.
Many specialists also emphasise that microservices are not dependent on a specific technology, which provides many more options when it comes to choosing it. Laser marking on metals by lasit.it is a good example of using digital solutions in the business.
Disadvantages of microservices
It is worth remembering, however, that despite a large number of advantages, microservices are not completely free of disadvantages. First of all, due to the rather extensive nature of the whole thing, it is necessary to employ a significant number of specialists to work on the project. This, in turn, can be associated with increased costs.
Although the failure rate of microservices is relatively low, fault detection is quite difficult and time-consuming. In addition, possible data leakage in the absence of optimum care of the application state is definitely more likely compared to a monolithic application.
The number of disadvantages of microservices is relatively small, but they are quite significant disadvantages of this solution, which cannot be ignored.
Advantages of monolithic applications
A definite advantage of monolithic applications, when it comes to web application development is that they are much easier to implement. We do not have to deal with the division into many modules, and thus the entire construction of the application is much simpler and does not require the participation of a large group of specialists. Thus, a monolithic application is an excellent solution for a limited budget. At the same time, for the same reason a small monolithic application may turn out to be more efficient than a similar solution created on the basis of microservices.
The biggest disadvantages of a monolithic application
By far the biggest disadvantage of monolithic applications is the inability to make small interventions in the code within the same base. Even a small, cosmetic fix requires releasing a new application, which is quite problematic. Additionally, one mistake, no matter how small, may affect stability of the whole application.
Similarly as in the case of microservices, also in the case of monolithic applications the detection of errors can take a lot of time, although many specialists indicate that despite the time-consuming nature of this task – the detection of irregularities is still easier than in the case of microservices, which are quite extensive.
It seems that microservices have definitely more advantages compared to monolithic applications. However, it is worth remembering that in some situations the older, less advanced solution is used and turns out to be a better option.
