Modularity

Microservices and modularity are similar in nature but not entirely the same. The basic concept of modularity is to avoid creating a monolithic implementation of a software system. A monolithic software system is inadvertently developed in such a way that components are tightly coupled and have heavy reliance on each other, so much so that the effect of updating one component requires the updating of many others just to improve functionality or alleviate the presence of a defect.

Monolithic software development implementations are most common in legacy code bases that were poorly designed or rushed through the development phase. They can often result in brittle software functionality and force the business to continue to spend significant amounts of time updating and maintaining the code base.

On the other hand, a modular software system has a neatly encapsulated set of modules, which can be easily updated and maintained due to the lack of tightly coupled components. Each component in a modular software system provides a generally self-reliant piece of functionality and can be swapped out for a replacement in a much more efficient manner.