In this article, we’ll learn about the concept behind micro frontends.

What is micro frontend?

Lately, microservices have become quite popular in organizations, using this architectural style to avoid monolith large backends. New technologies like Node have significantly contributed to server-side software. But companies are still struggling with monolith frontend codebases.

The term Micro Frontends has been used a lot lately, offering a concept similar to Microservices. In micro frontend we can split a monolith frontend application to a micro application. It can be loaded into a single container application that runs on the browser. The most simplistic explanation for microservices is the technique that developers use to deploy it.

It allows developers to do independent deployment for different parts. And they don’t have to worry about damage to other parts of widgets. In this way, developers can build isolated or loosely coupled services. Each service only has one task and it is a small one.

Advantages of micro frontend

The concept of micro frontend emerged in 2016. Since then it has become widely popular due to its concrete business advantages. Large code-bases often take significant time overruns when it comes to adding a feature. Every change can affect other parts of the code. Micro frontend came into the market to address these issues. Some of its benefits are:

Quick and smooth development: In the micro frontend, different features and services are developed independently. That makes the development process faster and smoother.

Fast deployment: Unlike traditional frontend architecture, services in micro frontend can work autonomously. Hence, the deployment process becomes fast and smooth.

Quality improvement: Parallel testing can help in faster product quality improvements. Teams can release individual models independently in separate versions. They don’t have to wait for the completion of entire frontend. Effective testing: As in micro frontends, components are developed and tested separately. In this way, they can be tested for dependencies and changes. This eliminates the need of testing upon finishing of whole project.

One component belongs to one team: All the widgets in micro frontend are developed separately. A separate team is responsible for development of each component. They don’t have to worry about dependencies. This eliminates the testing or planing halts that occur when team intervenes to discuss a certain error. This erropr can occur in any of the components of the whole project.

Continuous integration: In microservices, a company can build and release its widgets when ready. It gels smoothly with a company’s need to respond to changes. In this way, micro frontend streamlines the continuous integration process obviating the inflexible build process.

Easy maintenance: Teams work separately on different widgets, that makes maintenance relatively easier. Business teams can tell their demands and developers can modify their widgets. Developers develop widgets separately according to the requirements.

No complete failure: If one module fails, this won’t cause any harm to other modules. They continue to work smoothly.

The flipside of micro frontend

Although micro frontend offers significant advantages over the monolith frontends. But there are some challenges too. These challenges need to be dealt intelligently. A major issue is, of course, the overall design of the application. A bird’s eye view of the entire UI is necessary to ensure UX consistency. When teams work independently, it can be difficult to maintain this consistency in design.

For example, navigation and menus are areas to look out for as they should not be similar for two different users. Furthermore, the lack of communication among different teams working can cause chaos in the development process.