Monolith vs Microservices: when microservices are a mistake
Many founders ask for microservices because they heard it “scales”. In reality, microservices often slow teams down and increase costs — especially at MVP stage.
The best question is not “microservices or monolith?” but: How do we keep delivery fast and risk low?
The hidden cost of microservices
Microservices require:
- service boundaries and contracts
- deployment pipelines for each service
- observability (logs/metrics/tracing)
- distributed debugging
- versioning and backward compatibility
That’s a lot of DevOps and process — before you deliver business value.
A safe default: modular monolith
For most products, the best start is:
- one codebase
- clear modules and boundaries
- one deployment pipeline
- one database (usually)
This gives you speed today and a migration path tomorrow.
When microservices are justified
Microservices make sense if you have:
- multiple teams working in parallel
- clear, stable domains
- serious scaling needs in specific components
- strong DevOps maturity
If you don’t have these, microservices are usually premature optimization.
Migration path that works
- Start with a modular monolith
- Measure bottlenecks and team friction
- Split only the module that needs it (one service at a time)
FAQ
But we expect high load. Should we start with microservices?
Not necessarily. High load can often be handled with good caching, database design, and a well-structured monolith.
Can we scale a monolith?
Yes. Horizontal scaling, queues, caching, and database tuning go a long way.
What’s the biggest risk?
Building infrastructure complexity before product-market fit.
If you want, I can help you choose monolith vs modular vs microservices — and share criteria for when it’s actually time to add complexity.