What is a Monolith?

In computer programming and software architecture, a monolith is a large, single, self-contained executable unit composed of code, libraries, and configuration files. Monoliths are very large in size, and this means they contain much more code than microservices or other applications. Often, the monoliths have to be broken up into multiple projects, services, and databases in order to free them of some of their friction and inefficiencies. Due to their larger size, they are much more complex to build, manage, and debug than their smaller, service-oriented counterparts.

Advantages of a Monolith

The main advantage of a monolith is its simplicity. You can write a single code base that interacts with the data, services, features and front end. This makes it much easier for developers to work on the project, as all components are easily accessible and reusable within the code. This is also helpful when it comes to debugging as it is much easier to track down any errors within a single codebase. Additionally, monoliths are often cheaper to develop and maintain.

Disadvantages of a Monolith

The biggest disadvantage of a monolith is its size. Due to their large size, monoliths can be slow and difficult to keep up with changes. They require more resources and manpower to maintain, and due to their complexity, any changes might affect other parts of the application. Additionally, when changes do need to be done, it can be quite hard to do an impact analysis to identify the changes that need to be done and might inadvertently cause unforeseen problems. Furthermore, scalability can be an issue for monoliths; as the application grows in size and traffic, scaling the whole application together can become increasingly difficult.

Conclusion

A monolith is an application architecture composed of a large, single, self-contained codebase. Monoliths are relatively simple to develop and debug and often cheaper to maintain. However, they can be inefficient and slow, and so have a tendency to break off into multiple services and projects over time. As such, it may be more beneficial to break off a monolith into granular microservices in order to avoid its inefficiencies when it is needed.