The microservices-honeymoon period is over. Uber are refactoring thousands of microservices into a more manageable solution [1], according to Kelsey Hightower monoliths are the future [2], and even Sam Newman says that microservices should never be the default choice, but rather a last resort [3].

What is going on here? Why so many projects became unmaintainable, despite the microservices’ promise of simplicity and flexibility? Or maybe monoliths are better, after all? In this post, I want to address these questions. You will learn about common design issues that turn microservices into distributed big balls of mud, and of course, and how you can avoid them.