How The Microservices Vs. Monoliths Debate Is Damaging Your Business

Forbes

12-05-2025

Beyond The Architecture Cage Match: How The Microservices Vs. Monoliths Debate Is Damaging Your ... More Business
In the red corner, weighing in with independent scalability and distributed complexity: microservices! In the blue corner, the reigning legacy champion, with its infamous deployment challenges: the monolith!
For years, architects and technology executives have watched this architectural cage match with bated breath. Technology forums buzzed with trash talk from both sides. Conference speakers built careers championing one approach while demonizing the other. Vendors sold middleware solutions promising to crown you champion — if only you'd pick their preferred fighter.
But what if we told you that this entire spectacle was all just a waste of time? The truth? Your organization shouldn't pick a single winner in this so-called battle. You need different solutions tailored to specific contexts.
The industry landscape is littered with both cautionary tales and success stories that illustrate architectural tension.
Consider how Segment, the customer data platform, famously documented its journey from monolith to microservices and then partially back again. The engineering team initially split Segment's platform into over 100 microservices in pursuit of scalability, only to face what they called 'death by a thousand microservices.' The team eventually consolidated back to a more balanced approach after experiencing mounting operational complexity and debugging challenges that outweighed the benefits.
On the flip side, many established enterprises cling to aging monoliths long past their expiration dates. When retail giant Target began its digital transformation, it realized that its monolithic architecture couldn't deliver the agility needed to compete with Amazon. Its pragmatic phased approach to modernization — selectively decomposing components while maintaining core systems — helped Target achieve an impressive digital turnaround without falling into either extreme of the architectural spectrum.
The lesson from both scenarios? Architectural decisions driven by trends rather than business context frequently lead organizations astray. Architecture is about weighing trade-offs, not adhering to dogma.
As we enter a new era of digital acceleration, the organizations pulling ahead aren't arguing about monoliths versus microservices. They're pragmatically applying architectural patterns where they make sense, modernizing incrementally where they see concrete benefits, and staying focused on delivering business value.
So go beyond the battle royale, put down the architectural dogma, and start asking better questions about what your specific context, organization, and business needs demand. The true champion of modern software architecture isn't a particular pattern — it's the pragmatic, business-focused approach that delivers real results in your unique context. Because in the real world, the only architectural approach fighter that truly wins is the one that helps your business succeed.
This post was written by Principal Analyst Devin Dickerson and Principal Analyst David Mooter and it originally appeared here.