WHY MORE STARTUPS ARE CHOOSING MICROSERVICES OVER MONOLITHS AND WHEN YOU SHOULD TOO
In the early stages of building a product, startups often favor simplicity and speed. That’s why many begin with a monolithic architecture – a single, unified codebase that gets the MVP out fast. But as products grow and user demands increase, that simple architecture can turn into a bottleneck.
More startups are now transitioning to microservices to gain flexibility, scale, and developer efficiency. But is it the right move for your product? In this article, we’ll explore the practical reasons behind the shift and when it actually makes sense with real examples from the startup world. First, let’s discuss some technical aspects of these concepts.
MONOLITH VS MICROSERVICES
Monolith: A single application where everything (frontend, backend, business logic, database) is bundled together.
Example: A basic booking system where user login, reservations, notifications, and billing are all in one codebase and deployed together.
Microservices: A distributed system where each function (e.g. authentication, search, payments) is developed and deployed independently. Services talk to each other via APIs.
Example: Uber evolved from a monolith to a microservice architecture to support high availability across cities, time zones, and dynamic pricing logic.
TOP 10 REASONS TO CONSIDER FOR THE SHIFT
1) Scalability Challenges
You need to scale parts of your app independently (e.g., search or payments), but the monolith forces you to scale the entire system – wasting resources.
2) Slow Deployment Cycles
Updating one small feature requires redeploying the whole app, increasing downtime risk and slowing down release velocity.
3) Team Growth and Code Conflicts
Multiple teams working on the same monolith cause merge conflicts and deployment bottlenecks. Microservices give each team its own space.
4) Service Isolation for Stability
A bug in one part of the monolith (e.g., billing) can crash the whole app. Microservices isolate failures and make systems more resilient.
5) Technology Flexibility
Different parts of your system may benefit from different languages or frameworks. Microservices let you use the right tool for each job.
6) Faster Time-to-Market for Features
Independent services can be developed and released in parallel, speeding up delivery of new features.
7) Improved Maintainability
Smaller, focused codebases are easier to understand, test, and refactor compared to a sprawling monolithic codebase.
8) Better Resource Utilization
Instead of over-provisioning one large app, you allocate compute resources more efficiently to the services that actually need them.
9) Preparedness for Future Growth
Startups planning for regional expansion or high availability need a scalable architecture. Microservices enable global deployments and redundancy.
10) Increased Developer Autonomy
Teams can build, test, and deploy their services independently, reducing dependencies and internal friction.
More startups are now transitioning to microservices to gain flexibility, scale, and developer efficiency. But is it the right move for your product? In this article, we’ll explore the practical reasons behind the shift and when it actually makes sense with real examples from the startup world. First, let’s discuss some technical aspects of these concepts.
MONOLITH VS MICROSERVICES
Monolith: A single application where everything (frontend, backend, business logic, database) is bundled together.
Example: A basic booking system where user login, reservations, notifications, and billing are all in one codebase and deployed together.
Microservices: A distributed system where each function (e.g. authentication, search, payments) is developed and deployed independently. Services talk to each other via APIs.
Example: Uber evolved from a monolith to a microservice architecture to support high availability across cities, time zones, and dynamic pricing logic.
TOP 10 REASONS TO CONSIDER FOR THE SHIFT
1) Scalability Challenges
You need to scale parts of your app independently (e.g., search or payments), but the monolith forces you to scale the entire system – wasting resources.
2) Slow Deployment Cycles
Updating one small feature requires redeploying the whole app, increasing downtime risk and slowing down release velocity.
3) Team Growth and Code Conflicts
Multiple teams working on the same monolith cause merge conflicts and deployment bottlenecks. Microservices give each team its own space.
4) Service Isolation for Stability
A bug in one part of the monolith (e.g., billing) can crash the whole app. Microservices isolate failures and make systems more resilient.
5) Technology Flexibility
Different parts of your system may benefit from different languages or frameworks. Microservices let you use the right tool for each job.
6) Faster Time-to-Market for Features
Independent services can be developed and released in parallel, speeding up delivery of new features.
7) Improved Maintainability
Smaller, focused codebases are easier to understand, test, and refactor compared to a sprawling monolithic codebase.
8) Better Resource Utilization
Instead of over-provisioning one large app, you allocate compute resources more efficiently to the services that actually need them.
9) Preparedness for Future Growth
Startups planning for regional expansion or high availability need a scalable architecture. Microservices enable global deployments and redundancy.
10) Increased Developer Autonomy
Teams can build, test, and deploy their services independently, reducing dependencies and internal friction.
OUR ACTIONS TO DEVELOP YOUR BUSINESS
If you consider what services should be chosen for your business we think that the best option is to provide some examples what we offered to our customers. At DeliaSoft, we’ve helped:
A logistics startup refactor their monolith by extracting shipment tracking and route optimization into separate services – cutting API response time by 40%
A B2B SaaS company move to microservices with modular billing, notifications, and analytics – allowing different teams to release updates independently every week
A marketplace platform migrate search and recommendation logic into dedicated services to reduce downtime and improve user personalization
In each case, we adapted the architecture to match the business phase – never pushing microservices too early or delaying them when they were needed.
If you consider what services should be chosen for your business we think that the best option is to provide some examples what we offered to our customers. At DeliaSoft, we’ve helped:
A logistics startup refactor their monolith by extracting shipment tracking and route optimization into separate services – cutting API response time by 40%
A B2B SaaS company move to microservices with modular billing, notifications, and analytics – allowing different teams to release updates independently every week
A marketplace platform migrate search and recommendation logic into dedicated services to reduce downtime and improve user personalization
In each case, we adapted the architecture to match the business phase – never pushing microservices too early or delaying them when they were needed.
