A Comparative Analysis of Monolithic and Microservices Architectures: Performance and Cost Perspectives

Abstract

This research will perform a comparative evaluation of monolithic architecture and microservices architecture with a focus on their performance and cost characteristics. Software architecture plays an important role for the scalability and efficiency of contemporary software products. Monolithic architecture implies the use of a single software codebase which makes applications easier to develop but more difficult to manage. In contrast to this, microservices architecture relies on dividing an application into separate autonomous services which helps to make it flexible and scalable. The methodology of the study will include analyzing the results of various experiments and analytical works conducted previously by other researchers. Literature review will cover all key aspects of performance of both architectural styles including response time, throughput and resource usage. Previous research has revealed that the best performance can be expected from monolithic architectures under low-load conditions and in a single machine environment due to lower communication overhead. However, microservices architecture demonstrates better performance in a scaled-up and distributed setting because of the possibility to scale each service independently. Also, it should be mentioned that despite resource optimization possibilities of microservices in cloud environment, microservices typically cost more than monolithic architectures. The main contribution of this work will be providing a systematic comparison of both styles which can help developers to choose one of the styles considering its performance and cost characteristics..