Modular Monolith First: The Microservices Illusion

Why starting with a modular monolith often beats jumping straight into microservices

Posted by Hüseyin Sekmenoğlu on February 23, 2023 Architecture & Patterns

🧠 The Misconception About Microservices

Many developers believe microservices will magically simplify everything.

They expect:

  • Faster deployments

  • Faster releases

  • Fewer bugs

  • Independent teams

  • Cool bullet points on their resume

Sounds great, right? But reality looks very different.


🚨 The Harsh Reality of Microservices

Here’s what developers actually face when they dive into microservices too early:

  • Managing over a hundred Git repositories

  • Distributed transaction nightmares

  • Strong consistency issues

  • Complex saga and compensation logic

  • Debugging across multiple services

  • Event-driven architecture complexities

  • Communication failures between services

  • Monitoring dozens of services

  • Logging across disconnected systems

  • Orchestrating deployments

  • Version mismatches

  • Increased network latency

  • Synchronization problems

  • Difficult configuration management

  • Troubleshooting across service boundaries

  • Service-to-service security challenges

  • Painful local development setups

  • Load balancing issues

  • Team coordination difficulties

In short, complexity does not vanish. It just changes form and moves to another layer.


🧩 Start with a Modular Monolith

You don't need microservices for every project.

In fact, most projects do not need them.

The best approach is often to start with a modular monolith. This architecture combines:

  • The simplicity of a monolith

  • The structure of microservices

  • The scalability to grow when you need to

With a modular monolith you work within a single codebase but modules are clearly separated by domain or responsibility. This enables teams to work independently without the communication overhead of distributed systems.

You maintain fast development cycles and easy debugging while keeping your architecture clean and scalable.


💡 Why It Works So Well

I have worked with many different architectures throughout my career. The one that consistently delivers the best balance of performance and maintainability is the modular monolith.

When built correctly, a modular monolith allows you to delay the switch to microservices until it becomes truly necessary — not because of hype or pressure but because the system has naturally outgrown its original boundaries.

The transition from modular monolith to microservices becomes easier and safer because the modules are already defined and decoupled.


📚 A Recommended Resource

If you want to go deeper into this topic, I highly recommend following Milan Jovanović and his detailed work on modular monoliths:

👉 What Is a Modular Monolith – Milan Jovanović

He explains how to structure your code, when to scale out and how to avoid the traps many developers fall into when they adopt microservices too early.


✅ Final Thoughts

Microservices are not magic. They are powerful but complex and they require serious investment in infrastructure and expertise.

Start simple. Build strong. Grow when the time is right.

The best microservices usually evolve from well-structured modular monoliths.