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Microservices are an architectural approach where an application is built as a collection of small, independent services. Instead of one giant monolith, you have many small services that work together. Think of it like a restaurant: instead of one chef doing everything, you have specialists (sous chef, pastry chef, grill master) who each handle their domain.
Characteristics:
- Independent: Each service can be developed, deployed, and scaled separately
- Focused: Each service does one thing well
- Communicate via APIs: Services talk to each other over the network
- Own their data: Each service has its own database
Benefits:
- Scalability: Scale only the services that need it
- Technology diversity: Use different languages/frameworks per service
- Fault isolation: One service failure doesn't bring down everything
- Team autonomy: Different teams can work on different services
Challenges:
- Complexity: More services = more to manage
- Network latency: Services communicate over network
- Data consistency: Harder to maintain across services
- Deployment: More moving parts to coordinate
FAQ
When should I use microservices?
Start with a monolith. Consider microservices when you have multiple teams, need to scale different parts independently, or have complex domain boundaries.
What's the difference between microservices and monoliths?
A monolith is one big application. Microservices break it into many small, independent services that communicate over the network.