Senior backend interviews frequently require you to compare monoliths and microservices.
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| monolith | Single deployable unit containing all functionality |
| microservice | Small, independent service with a single responsibility |
| service discovery | Mechanism for services to find each other |
| API gateway | Single entry point that routes requests to services |
| event-driven | Services communicate via events/messages |
| circuit breaker | Pattern to stop cascading failures between services |
| eventual consistency | Data will be consistent across services, but not instantly |