Microservices Explained: When and Why
Microservices are not always the right choice. Learn what microservices actually are, when they make sense, and when a simpler architecture is the better option for your business.
Jordan25 Jun 2025 · 7 min read
Introduction
Microservices have become one of the most discussed topics in software development. Every tech conference talks about them. Every job listing mentions them. But the reality is more nuanced than the hype suggests.
In this article, we cut through the buzzwords and explain when microservices genuinely help your business and when a simpler architecture is the smarter choice.
What Microservices Actually Are
In a traditional monolithic application, all functionality lives in a single codebase that is deployed as one unit. Microservices split that application into small, independent services that each handle one specific business capability.
For example, an e-commerce platform might have separate services for product catalog, order management, payment processing, and user accounts. Each service has its own database, can be deployed independently, and communicates with other services through APIs.
When Microservices Make Sense
Microservices shine when you have multiple teams working on the same product. With a monolith, teams step on each other's toes. Changes by one team break another team's features. Deployments become complex coordination exercises.
They also make sense when different parts of your application have very different scaling needs. If your search functionality needs ten times the computing power of your user profile service, microservices let you scale each independently instead of scaling everything.
When a Monolith Is Better
For most small to medium businesses, a well-structured monolith is the better choice. Microservices introduce operational complexity that requires dedicated infrastructure, monitoring, and expertise to manage. If you have a team of three to five developers, that overhead is hard to justify.
Starting with a monolith does not mean you are stuck with it forever. A well-designed monolith with clear module boundaries can be split into microservices later when the business actually needs it. Many successful companies including Shopify and Basecamp run on monoliths at scale.
The Hidden Costs of Microservices
Microservices trade code complexity for operational complexity. You now need service discovery, distributed tracing, circuit breakers, and message queues. Every network call between services can fail. Data consistency across services requires careful design.
Debugging becomes harder because a single user request might touch five different services. Deployment requires container orchestration platforms like Kubernetes. These are solvable problems, but they require investment and expertise that many businesses underestimate.
Extracting Your First Service: A Proven Order
If you do decide to split up a monolith, do not start at the core but at the edge. The best first candidate is a module with few dependencies and a clear task, such as generating PDF invoices, sending notifications, or processing images. Such functions have hardly any shared data, so the risk is small, while your team still goes through the full learning curve: separate deployment, monitoring, and error handling. If that first extraction goes smoothly, you know the rest is feasible too; if it is a struggle, you have learned that at minimal cost.
Then work from the outside in and set hard rules: no service reads directly from another service's database, and every interface is captured in a documented API contract. That sounds strict, but it prevents the hidden entanglement that makes distributed systems unmanageable. We apply the same approach when redeveloping legacy systems, where decoupling through clean interfaces is often the only safe route. Expect two to six weeks of work per extracted service, depending on how many hidden dependencies surface.
The 2026 Perspective: The Pendulum Swung Back
Since this article was first published, the industry conversation has visibly cooled on microservices-by-default. High-profile engineering teams have written about consolidating dozens of services back into modular monoliths after the operational bill came due, and the "modular monolith" has become a respectable architecture choice rather than a compromise.
AI-assisted development reinforces this trend in both directions. On one hand, coding agents navigate a single well-structured codebase far more effectively than a web of repositories, which favors the monolith for small teams. On the other hand, teams that do run microservices now lean on AI tooling for the operational burden: generating service scaffolding, tracing failures across services, and keeping API contracts in sync. The core advice stands: choose the simplest architecture that solves your actual problems.
Conclusion
Microservices are a powerful architectural pattern, but they are not a universal solution. The right architecture depends on your team size, your business complexity, and your scaling needs. Choose the simplest architecture that solves your actual problems.
Not sure which architecture fits your project? MG Software helps businesses design software architectures that match their current needs while leaving room for future growth.
Jordan
Co-founder
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