Monolithic and Microservices Architectural Concepts

Monolithic Architectural Concept

Let’s think of a toy building block set, like the ones you might have played with as a kid. Imagine you’re building a castle using a single, large block that represents the entire structure — walls, towers, gates, and everything else. This big block is your “castle,” and it’s solid; you can’t change a part of it without modifying the whole thing. If you decide you want a bigger gate or an extra tower, you have to reshape or replace the entire block. This big block is like a monolithic architecture in software development.

In software terms, a monolithic architecture means your application is built as one big block (or a single unit of code) that includes all its functionalities: handling user requests, processing data, managing the database, and so on. If you need to update a feature, fix a bug, or add something new, you have to deal with the whole block, affecting everything else, just as if you were trying to change a part of your solid toy castle.

This makes initial building simple, much like it’s straightforward to play with a single block. However, as your needs grow more complex — say you want your castle to have different types of towers or more detailed gates — adjusting a monolithic block becomes limiting. You start wishing you could work on parts of the castle independently rather than reshaping the whole thing for every small change.