Monolith vs Microservices — Org-Scale Problem, Not a Tech Problem

Microservices solve org-scale coordination problems. Monoliths solve everything else faster.

When to use microservices

• 3 teams owning independent domains

• Services need different scaling profiles or release cadences
• Polyglot requirements per domain

Tradeoffs

• Distributed systems complexity (network failures, consistency, observability overhead)
• Operational overhead multiplies with number of services

Dimension	Choose Monolith	Choose Microservices
Team size	1–3 teams	4+ independent teams
Traffic pattern	Uniform load	Heterogeneous scaling needs
Release cadence	Shared deploys acceptable	Teams need independent deploys
Domain complexity	Single bounded context	Multiple distinct subdomains
Operational maturity	Early stage	Strong platform/SRE capability

Gotcha: Start with a modular monolith. Extracting services is easier than merging a broken mesh.