Software architects face the same fundamental design challenges across projects, companies, and careers. Rather than reinventing solutions each time, the industry has developed architectural patterns—reusable approaches that address these recurring problems.
The diagram below breaks down nine core patterns you'll encounter:
Client-Server Architecture remains the foundation of web applications—clients connect through the internet, typically via load balancers and CDNs, to reach backend services.
Layered Architecture separates concerns vertically: Presentation Layer handles the UI, Business Logic Layer processes rules and workflows, and Data Access Layer manages persistence.
Pipes and Filter processes data through a sequential chain—information flows from a source through multiple transformation filters before reaching its final destination.
Domain Driven Design organizes complex systems around bounded contexts. In the example shown, Catalog, Order, Fulfillment, and Billing contexts each own their domain while communicating across boundaries.
Monolithic Architecture bundles everything into a single deployable unit—web layer, business components, and a shared database. Simple to start, but scaling gets tricky.
Microservices Architecture takes the opposite approach. Independent services each maintain their own database, connected through an API gateway. More operational complexity, but each service scales and deploys independently.
Event-Driven Architecture decouples producers from consumers through a message broker. Producers publish events without knowing who's listening; consumers subscribe to what they care about.
Serverless Architecture appears twice because it takes different forms—stream processing for real-time analytics pipelines, and Lambda-style functions that spin up workers on demand.
None of these patterns are universally "best." The right choice depends on your team size, scaling requirements, and how much operational complexity you're willing to manage. But knowing the tradeoffs helps you make that decision deliberately rather than accidentally.
Bytebytego explains it very well in their blog
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