Benefits of Micro-Frontend Web Applications

Lets understand what a micro-frontend web application, shall we? 

Micro front-ends are a different structural approach to front end development. The idea is to break down the work. The style involves independently deliverable front end applications which are then composed into a greater whole.  

This is more popular today and intends to break some of the drawbacks of the traditional monolithic method. As software companies continue to grow, everything gets far too difficult to maintain and update. Micro front-ends give you the ability to achieve a way simpler architecture. You can split the application into smaller independent parts. Each of which are assigned to different teams that may use different technologies. 

There are many benefits to this architecture in new projects. They provide more flexibility, modularity in design. Each team has UI components without worrying about disturbing the flow of the other team.  

1. Flexibility 

There’s more room for improvement and experiments. This helps create features without worrying about another parallel segment. It also helps work quicker. Changes, if needed, are also much easier to make. This structure helps maintain the workflow. 

2. Parallel work

Several teams can work together on different parts of the application at the same time without having the need to constantly check in about the details with others. Large front-ends can make it a challenge to manage several development projects. By working parallely, developers are able to work simultaneously within apps and this means faster outputs and effective workflows. 

3. Reduced time and cost 

By repeating the use of a single interface multiple times across multiple applications, you can implement new features faster with far less labor. 

4. As micro-front ends are smaller pieces, they can be implemented using different tech stacks. This has a whole other benefit. As you start of you can divide work based on the expertise of the tech stack and it also helps hire new developers onto the team. It also helps adopt new technologies without having the weight of having to change one big block of work. 

5. Deployment is faster 

Adopting micro-front ends helps mainly because what would usually mean having a large team looking into the development of the entire front end system, you break it down to sizable chunks and have smaller teams take those up. The work is minimized and individual responsibility takes over. The deployment is quicker and so is correction. Newer features are easier to add. 

There are some drawbacks to this model, the most popular one being the possibility of difficulty in sharing and managing data between the different components. 

1. Sync issues

As all group projects go, there could be trouble here. If the teams make changes that break interfaces between modules, it could be difficult to navigate the problem.

2. Debugging 

With multiple teams working on different parts it can be hard to show conditions where a bug occurs. 

3. Integration 

While the architecture works it could be difficult to integrate different parts together if they depend on each other. This could be avoided with the right workflow. 

More and more companies are using this approach and this only seems to be gaining more interest. It’s a relatively immature technology, keeping the drawbacks in mind, perhaps it can be kept up for discussion. As web apps continue to evolve, micro frontends can continue on their evolution to make front end development easier.