This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Asif Sayed
If software architecture were a cooking show, monolithic architecture would be the “throw everything into one pot and hope for the best” recipe. It’s simple, hearty, and gets the job done until you realize your pot is now the size of a small planet, and one wrong ingredient could ruin dinner for everyone.
What Is Monolithic Architecture?
Monolithic architecture is like building a house where the kitchen, bedroom, bathroom, and garage are all in one giant room. Everything, the user interface, business logic, and data access, is packed into a single codebase and deployed as one unit.
When you run it, you run the whole thing. When you update it, you update the entire thing. And when it refuses to work, yep, the whole thing goes down like a stack of cards. This process of updating and running the entire application is what we call ‘deployment’ in the software world.
Real-World Example: Shopazon (Totally Not Amazon)
Let’s say you’re building an e-commerce site called Shopazon, selling socks with cats doing yoga (because why not). You start small, so you build it as a monolithic app. That means:
The product catalogue, user login, shopping cart, payment gateway, and order tracking all live in one codebase.
You deploy everything together, one button, one server, one happy developer.
Customers browse, buy, and track orders, all handled by the same application.
It’s fast, simple, and perfect for a small team. But then your cat socks go viral. Suddenly:
The product catalogue needs to scale.
The payment system needs tighter security.
The order tracking needs to talk to five different shipping providers.
But because it’s monolithic, you can’t just update or scale one part. You must redeploy the entire app. It’s like repainting your whole house because the bathroom needs a new colour. In this analogy, the ‘bathroom’ represents the part of the application that needs to be updated, and the ‘house’ means the entire application that needs to be redeployed.
Key Characters of Monolithic Architecture
Single Process: Everything runs together. No separate services.
Tightly Coupled: Modules are interconnected. Change one, risk breaking others.
Single Stack: One language, one framework. No techno salad.
Why People Still Use It?
Simplicity: Great for beginners and small projects. You don’t need to juggle services.
Performance: Internal calls are fast, with no network latency.
Easy Deployment: One pipeline, one repo, one place to scream when things go wrong.
Why It Can Be a Nightmare!
Scalability: You can’t scale individual components. It’s all or nothing.
Maintenance: As the app grows, so does the complexity, like trying to untangle Christmas lights from 2007.
Deployment Risks: A small change means redeploying everything. One bug can take down the whole system.
Should You Use It?
If you’re starting or building something small, monolithic architecture is a great way to learn the ropes. It’s like training wheels for system design. You’ll understand how components interact, how to manage deployments, and how to debug without needing a PhD in distributed systems. It’s a journey of growth and learning, paving the way for your future success.
But as your app grows like Shopazon did, you’ll eventually hit a wall. That’s when developers start breaking things into microservices, which is basically the “separate everything and make it complicated” model.
Final Thoughts
Monolithic architecture isn’t outdated; it’s just misunderstood like cargo pants. Sure, they’re bulky, but they’ve got pockets for days. For new developers, it’s a great starting point. Just know that when your app starts boiling over, you might need to break it up into smaller servings.
So go ahead, build your one-pot wonder. Could you keep an eye on the stove? 
Like to see a related short video? Head on to my Youtube channel:
https://www.youtube.com/@dotnetsme
This content originally appeared on DEV Community and was authored by Asif Sayed