Why You Don't Need Microservices

Most developers have heard the siren song of microservices. They promise scalability, independent deployments, and team autonomy. But here's the thing: you probably don't need them.

The Microservices Hype

Every tech conference talks about microservices as if they're the solution to every architectural problem. Companies love to showcase their microservices architecture as a badge of sophistication. But most of these companies started with monoliths and grew them successfully.

When Monoliths Make Sense

A monolithic architecture is perfect for most applications. Here's why:

1. Simpler deployment - One artifact, one process, one database
2. Easier debugging - Stack traces make sense across the entire application
3. Better performance - No network hops between services
4. Faster development - No need for service discovery, API versioning, or distributed tracing

The Reality Check

Microservices add complexity:

• Distributed system challenges (network partitions, eventual consistency)
• Deployment orchestration (Kubernetes, Docker Swarm, etc.)
• Service mesh overhead (Istio, Linkerd)
• Monitoring and observability across services
• API versioning and compatibility

Code Example

Here's what a simple monolith looks like:

// Simple, straightforward code
async function createOrder(userId: string, items: Item[]) {
  const user = await db.users.findById(userId)
  const order = await db.orders.create({
    userId,
    items,
    total: calculateTotal(items),
  })
  
  await sendEmail(user.email, { orderId: order.id })
  return order
}

In a microservices world, this becomes:

// Distributed across 3 services, 2 databases, and a message queue
async function createOrder(userId: string, items: Item[]) {
  const user = await userService.getUser(userId) // HTTP call
  const order = await orderService.create({       // HTTP call
    userId,
    items,
  })
  
  await messageQueue.publish('order.created', {   // Async message
    orderId: order.id,
    userEmail: user.email,
  })
  
  // Hope the email service processes the message correctly
  return order
}

When You Actually Need Microservices

Microservices make sense when:

• You have multiple teams that need to deploy independently
• You have legacy systems that can't be rewritten
• You have extreme scale requirements (think Netflix, Amazon)
• Different parts of your system have wildly different scalability needs

For 99% of applications, a well-structured monolith is the better choice.

Conclusion

Start simple. Build a monolith. Refactor when you have actual problems, not theoretical ones. Premature optimization is the root of all evil, and microservices are often premature complexity.

Remember: the best architecture is the one that gets your product shipped and maintained with the least amount of complexity.