In recent years, developers have increasingly heard conflicting opinions about microservice architecture. Some call it outdated and too complex, while others continue to actively use it in large projects. Let's figure out what is really happening with microservices and what architectural approaches are relevant today.
What is a microservice architecture?
Microservice architecture is an approach to developing an application as a set of small independent services, each of which works in its own process and interacts with the rest through lightweight mechanisms, usually HTTP APIs. Each microservice is responsible for a specific business function and can be developed, deployed, and scaled independently.
For example, in an online store, these can be separate services for the product catalog, shopping cart, payment, delivery, and notifications. Each works autonomously, but together they form a single system.
Where did the talk about the death of microservices come from?
In 2024-2025, there were many publications about companies that abandon microservices in favor of a monolithic architecture. The most prominent examples are the teams of Amazon Prime Video and some startups that have publicly talked about a return to the monolith and significant resource savings.
The main problems faced by these teams:
Excessive complexity | Performance | Infrastructure costs | Debugging complexity |
|---|---|---|---|
For small applications with limited functionality, dozens of microservices created more problems than they solved. Developers had to constantly think about inter-service interaction, network requests, and distributed transactions. | Each call between services is a network request that adds a delay. When one user request calls a chain of five or six services, the total response time may become unacceptable. | Each microservice requires its own database, monitoring, logging, and CI/CD pipeline. For small teams, this becomes an unbearable burden. | When an error occurs somewhere in a chain of a dozen services, finding its source becomes a real quest. You need specialized tracing tools like Jaeger or Zipkin. |
Microservices are not dead — the context of their application has changed
It is important to understand that we are not talking about the death of microservices as an architectural pattern. The problem is that many teams used microservices where they were not needed, following the trend or recommendations from articles about large companies.
Netflix, Amazon, Uber, and Spotify continue to successfully use microservices because it is justified for them. When you have hundreds of developers working on a single product, splitting into independent services allows teams to work in parallel without interfering with each other.
The key point is that microservices are not needed for technical beauty, but for solving organizational problems of scaling the development team.
When microservices are really needed
Microservice architecture is justified in the following cases:
Large development team. When 30+ developers are working on the product, divided into several teams. Each team can own its own services and develop them independently.
Different load on components. If one part of the application processes millions of requests and the other part processes thousands, it makes sense to scale them separately.
Different technological requirements. Some tasks are better solved using certain technologies. For example, you can use Python for machine learning, Go for high-load APIs, and Node.js for real-time communications.
The need for independent deployment. When it is critical to release updates of individual parts of the system without restarting the entire application.
Alternatives and hybrid approaches
Modern development is moving towards more flexible architectural solutions:
Modular monolith. The application is structured as a set of clearly defined modules within a single code base. This provides the benefits of shared responsibility without the overhead of networking. If necessary, individual modules can be allocated to microservices.
Macro services. Instead of being divided into dozens of small services, the application is divided into several large ones (3-7), each of which covers a significant business area. This reduces the complexity of inter-service interaction while maintaining the benefits of separation.
Serverless architecture. Using cloud functions (AWS Lambda, Google Cloud Functions) allows you to write code in small independent parts, but without the need to manage the infrastructure. The cloud provider takes care of scaling and orchestration.
Event-driven architecture. Services communicate through events and message queues (RabbitMQ, Kafka), which makes them even more independent and resilient to failures.
Where should beginners start?
If you are just starting to develop, the best advice is to start simple. Create a monolithic application with a good code structure. Divide the logic into modules, use design patterns, and write tests.
Learn the basics of working with databases, APIs, authentication, and authorization within a single application. Understand how HTTP, REST API works, how the code is organized into layers (controllers, services, repositories).
When you have an understanding of how to build applications, you will be able to reasonably assess whether microservices are needed in a particular situation. In the meantime, do not rush to add complexity to the project that you do not need.
Modern trends of 2025.
Now the industry is moving towards pragmatism. Developers are increasingly choosing architecture based on real project requirements rather than fashion trends.
Tools that simplify working with distributed systems are gaining popularity: Service Mesh (Istio, Linkerd), API Gateway (Kong, Ambassador), and observability platforms (Grafana, Datadog). They make microservices more manageable for the teams that really need them.
At the same time, many startups and small companies consciously choose a monolith at the start, planning a possible division into services in the future, when it becomes necessary.
Conclusion
Microservices are not dead — they have simply taken their place in the arsenal of architectural solutions. It is a powerful tool, but not a universal answer to all questions.
The main lesson of recent years is that there is no single correct architecture. The choice depends on the size of the team, scalability requirements, available resources, and many other factors. A good developer knows different approaches and can choose the right one for a particular situation.
Start with the simple, learn by doing, and don't be afraid to redo when the current architecture stops coping. This is how real professionals grow.
You can learn Python from scratch, master working with databases and learn how to create full-fledged web applications in Codice — an educational platform for beginner developers.
And we also have cool telegram channel with a friendly community, where you can ask questions, share your successes and chat with like-minded people. Join us!