Microservices Vs Serverless – Which Architecture Should Businesses Choose

Last updated on May 29th, 2023

Nowadays, Technology to become a primary need in every sector, especially in the Business sector to give tough competition to their competitors. Due to this, it has become imperative for a business to upgrade their businesses according to the upgradation of new technologies. As technologies are rapidly advancing there is a need for applications that can scale easily and are good enough to perform better at a constant speed. Such evolving needs give rise to technologies such as microservices and serverless computing. Like any other technologies, both microservices and serverless are responsive to a particular problem to build an App.

Initially, there were traditional application building done by only one architecture called Monolithic Architecture, but it was very costly and affordable to some businessmen only and became less adaptable and required intensive resources, which gave rise to various other architectures to build an Application such as Microservers and Serverless.

But these two architectures give rise to the question of which gives the best results to choose both technologies to adapt in different ways, have different approaches but give the best result and both have security as their priority to build an App. For a better understanding of the two let’s discuss serverless architecture and microservice architecture.

What is Microservice?

The term Microservices itself refers to an Architectural pattern in which Applications are broken into small services. It is the opposite of Monolithic Architecture where a single entry contains all functions. Microservers have a decentralized architecture pattern in which the application is broken down into a smaller series of independent functions which communicate through Application Programming Interface (APIs). Each Microservices has its libraries, templates, database etc., all of them are tested separately as well.

For better understanding consider examples of food apps which allow us to browse different restaurants, dishes, cuisines etc add them to the cart and then finally complete your order.

There are various ways in which microservices can be executed. For it runs freely, each microservices contains basic elements: its Database, Libraries, Templates etc. All follow the rule of service-oriented Architecture (SOA) where the user gets the freedom of creating his App and running other Applications independently.

DevOps split down all the Application’s functions into smaller applications/ Services that work independently while retaining the main function of the App. These Applications are developed and tested solely before deployment. 

This architecture framework is good because if one function of an App gets corrupted and undergoes maintenance it will be easier to fix without affecting another service of a Microservice Application.

Kinds of Microservices

• Stateless Microservice – This kind of microservice does not supply existing data. Every use a new interface is generated and data must be added every time as it can never be preserved.
• Tasteful Microservices – This kind of Microservice always makes a record in the database that makes it easier to code efficiently such data stored externally in a data store like RDBMS, NoSQL databases etc.

Pros of Microservices – Better stability allows easy additions, removal and updation of Individual Microservices.

• Reuses and Adapts different contexts.
• Enhances pliancy to change business logic and use a variety of technologies.
• Removes faults within other services of some Applications.
• Develops, tests and launches service freely without affecting parent Application.

Cons of Microservices – For small businesses who need quick implementation elements too slow and complicated.

• Too complex owing to the components being split.
• Increases overall cost because of Multiple databases and maintenance.
• Expensive as required expertise and computing resources.

What is Serverless Architecture?

The term serverless reflects that there is no server involved in building Applications but it is not what it reflects it means that the organization which is developing the application does not depend on Hardware. Does not require investing in building or maintaining but relying on a third-party provider that everything is taken developers just have to focus on coding beside that everything is taken care of by the service provider from security patches to balancing load, capacity management, monitoring, logging and scaling etc. Some of the third-party platforms are AWS Lambda, Serverless Architecture, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure architecture.

Serverless Model Offers Two Different Perspectives

1. Function-as-a-Service (FaaS) – It is a flexible serverless architecture which lets the developers run code module functions without being concerned about back-end infrastructure and system requirements. The best example of FaaS is Cloudflare Workers.
2. Back-end as Service (BaaS) – This model is used to create Applications for mobiles and the web. The use of third-party services enables the users to focus on the front end of the Application. An example of Baas is AWS Lambda.

Pros of Serverless

• Allow easy and quick scalability.
• Focuses more on developing quality applications with easy deployment.
• Mitigates costs in hiring different database and server experts.
• Management of computing resources to a third-party vendor.

Cons of Serverless

• Involves long-term contract commitment with a third party.
• Cold starts due to the inactiveness of various services of parent applications.
• Performance issue due to multi-tenant serverless platforms.

There are various pros and cons of both the Microservice and serverless models. To determine which approach to choose, write down pointers by analyzing your business goal and product scope.

The main difference is Microservices in a technique to design an Application which serverless is the architecture to run the Application. Microservices may be hosted on serverless architecture.

The serverless model has opted for the organization that needs automatic scaling and lower runtime costs and microservice architecture should have opted for the organization that needs flexibility and wants to shift to modern Architecture.

Resource and Roles essential for Serverless Vs Microservices

As included above, microservices are smaller applications which help to develop and integrate to form more prominent Applications with individually working services. For creating Applications with the help of this architecture, the planning stage should be in detail to know what all microservices need to be created and how they will interact with the help of APIs. A good architect can manage this role effectively and efficiently.

Microservices are not language- specific which requires a language expert to create an App, But to develop an Application you need good developers and testers to have a clear understanding of Microservices architecture.

Loss of Microservices is higher during the Development process but it is cheaper in the long run. The cost to maintain is quite less because Applications continue to function even after one microservices is down and bugs can be easily removed in the case of small apps.

For the implementation of serverless Application Architecture, good service providers like AWS Lambda, Google Cloud Functions and Cloudflare Workers etc required and had to choose FaaS and BaaS according to their functions. The developer should have JavaScript or Python skills and also have experience with the service provider of your choice. The cost of Development of this kind of Application is comparatively cheaper and it launched in no time.

Combining Serverless and Microservice

Organizations can choose between microservices and serverless architecture according to their preference and need. But the Development team can build microservices architecture functions with serverless architecture functions to create a hybrid App.

By following, the approach we have mentioned below the Development team can combine microservices and serverless architecture Approaches.

• From Microservices to Serverless it must be event-triggered. Microservices should respond to the particular condition and user’s actions for them to work as a function.
• With the help of step functions or Logic Apps, functions can be assigned to microservices and various functions can be combined in the form of services which increases the feasibility of integrating them together.
• Serverless function Development is dependent on Cloud Storage and Computing. It is important to have more cloud Infrastructure so that you can implement certain principles from serverless architecture.

Some Examples of Microservices and Serverless Architecture 

As we mentioned above the difference, pros and cons, approaches etc of Microservice and Serverless architecture now we will discuss some examples.

Example of Microservices

• Amazon – Initially the company was following the monolithic architecture which was expensive, with exponential growth multiple services were introduced.
• Uber – Business processes are managed through microservices architecture like passenger management, notification, billing etc.
• Netflix – Netflix is one the first organization to adopt microservice cloud computing or serverless microservices that are used for server maintenance.

Example of Serverless Architecture

• Figma – With serverless architecture users can collaborate on one design, and Developers can focus on their projects than fill management.

• Nordstrom – Their website used serverless to build event-based Applications and add more features.

Microservices and Serverless both are kind of similar with different approaches in comparison with Monolithic Architecture, Serverless and Microservices.

Related Article: Why are Microservices Important in Mobile App Development?

Are You Looking for a Cost-effective Business Solution from iTechnolabs?

Prioritize, flexibility, cost-effectiveness, scalability and ease of adding new features. Organizations can choose any of them according to their company’s product scope and priorities. If you are planning to build a large platform that requires constant scaling, microservices with serverless microservices for a long-term solution. If you want a cost-effective and quick launch then serverless architecture is the best choice.