The Illusion of Microservices: Why the Modular Monolith is Once Again the Gold Standard in Architecture

Short summary

The post argues that microservices are often prematurely adopted in companies that aren't Netflix or Uber scale, creating "distributed monoliths" with excessive network latency, JSON serialization overhead, and bloated AWS bills. For most teams, a well-structured modular monolith—logically separated domains but unified deployment—delivers superior performance, lower infrastructure costs, and reduced cognitive load. The author advocates technical pragmatism: choose architecture based on actual needs and team size, not industry trends.

• •Premature microservices adoption creates "distributed monoliths" with network latency, serialization overhead, and exploding infrastructure costs
• •Modular monoliths maintain logical domain separation while keeping deployment unified, achieving better performance and lower costs
• •True engineering maturity means knowing when not to adopt complex patterns—pragmatism over architectural vanity

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