From Monolith to Micro Frontends: A React Developer’s Guide

Micro frontends bring the scalability and flexibility of microservices to the frontend world. In this guide, learn how to break large React applications into smaller, manageable pieces.

*Why Chose from Monolith to Micro Frontends?
*
Traditional monolithic frontends grow harder to manage as teams scale. Features become tightly coupled, deployments slower, and collaboration more complex.

Micro frontends solve this by:

• Breaking the app into independently deployable units
• Allowing teams to work autonomously
• Supporting tech diversity across teams

*🛠️ Tools and Architecture
*

The most popular technique to implement micro frontends in React is Module Federation in Webpack 5.

Each app (or micro frontend) can:

• Be developed and deployed independently
• Share common dependencies to avoid duplication
• Be loaded dynamically at runtime

*🧪 Basic Example Setup
*

1. Host App (Shell): Loads remote apps.

2. Remote App (Feature Team): Built independently and exposed via ModuleFederationPlugin.
   

// webpack.config.js (Host App)
new ModuleFederationPlugin({
  remotes: {
    remoteApp: 'remoteApp@http://localhost:3001/remoteEntry.js',
  },
});

///////

// webpack.config.js (Remote App)
new ModuleFederationPlugin({
  name: 'remoteApp',
  filename: 'remoteEntry.js',
  exposes: {
    './Header': './src/components/Header',
  },
  shared: ['react', 'react-dom'],
});

Now the host app can import remote components dynamically:

const RemoteHeader = React.lazy(() => import('remoteApp/Header'));

**🧩 Code Ownership & Deployment Strategy
**Each micro frontend can be built and owned by a specific team.

Teams can deploy without affecting others.

CI/CD pipelines can be decoupled for better scalability.

**⚠️ Challenges to Watch Out For
**Shared state: Global state management must be planned.

Version mismatches: Especially with shared libraries like React.

Performance overhead: Improper federation can bloat bundle sizes.

By adopting micro frontends, you empower teams with autonomy, speed up delivery cycles, and make your architecture future-proof.

🚀 Stay tuned for hands-on setup guides and deployment strategies in upcoming posts!