Monolithic and Distributed Monolith Applications: Understanding the Pros and Cons

In the world of software development, there are many approaches to designing and building applications. One commonly used approach is the monolithic architecture, in which the application is built as a single, self-contained unit. While monolithic architectures have some advantages, such as ease of development and testing, they can become difficult to maintain and scale as the application grows in size and complexity.

To address these issues, some organizations have turned to distributed monolith architectures, which involve decomposing the monolithic application into smaller, independent components that can be developed and deployed separately. There are two main approaches to implementing a distributed monolith: microservices and modular monoliths.

Microservices involve dividing the application into self-contained services that communicate with each other through well-defined interfaces. This approach offers more flexibility and scalability than a monolithic architecture, as individual components can be developed, deployed, and scaled independently. However, microservices can be more complex to develop and maintain due to the need to coordinate and manage the interactions between the various components.

Modular monoliths involve dividing the application into logical modules that can be developed and deployed independently, but are more closely integrated than microservices. This approach offers a balance between simplicity and flexibility, but may be less scalable than microservices.

Both microservices and modular monoliths have their own set of trade-offs and challenges, and the best approach will depend on the specific needs and constraints of the application and organization.

In addition to these architectural approaches, there are also software development practices such as continuous integration (CI) and continuous delivery (CD) that can be used to streamline the development and deployment process for, both, monoliths and microservices. CI involves regularly integrating code changes and automatically building and testing the code, while CD automates the process of delivering code changes to production/staging/development environments. These practices can help organizations to deploy updates and new features faster and more reliably, and can be particularly beneficial for distributed monoliths and microservices.