Choosing the Right Microservices Framework

Microservices architecture is a methodology that allows you to split a monolithic single application into small applications and services that perform lightweight tasks. Business capabilities and independently deployable models are the primary goals of microservices development. Microservices architecture is built using different programming languages, they can be deployed and interconnected.

Benefits of microservices

• Implementation of new technologies and processes.
• Scale applications independently.
• Cloud ready.
• Flawless integration.
• Effective use of hardware.
• Service-level security.
• API-based functions for efficient reuse.
• Independent application development and deployment.

Framework selection criteria

Below are some of the critical aspects to consider when choosing the right framework:

1. Popularity - Measured by the industry acceptance of a framework, based on the number of customers who have made it (the framework) an enterprise standard. Other important aspects are the availability of documentation and the number of qualified professionals available on the market.
2. Community maturity - The reputation of the framework supporting companies such as Apache, Google, or Spring. The maturity of the framework in terms of community / commercial support and release frequency to fix issues and add new features.
3. Ease of Development - Frameworks facilitate application development and improve developer productivity. The IDE (Integrated Development Environment) and framework-supporting tools also play an essential role in the rapid development of applications.
4. Learning Curve - Having documentation in the form of tutorials, best practices, and solutions to common problems plays an important role in shortening the learning curve and improving overall developer productivity.
5. Architecture Support - Frameworks provide code modules and interfaces with built-in design patterns that make it easier for application developers to code the complexity.
6. Automation Support - The framework supports the automation of tasks associated with building and deploying microservices.
7. Independent deployment - The framework must support all aspects of independent deployment - forward and backward compatibility, reusability, and portability.
8. Continuous Integration - Developers often integrate code into a shared repository, preferably several times a day. Each integration can be verified with automated builds and tests.

Various frameworks are available for microservice development according to the project requirements. Java, Python, C ++, Node JS, and .Net are several languages for microservice development. Let's take a closer look at the languages and related frameworks that support microservice development.

The diagram below shows the different frameworks associated with each language popular in 2021 and so on.

Microservices Frameworks

1. Java

There are several frameworks for developing microservices architecture using the Java programming language:

• Spring Boot - Spring Boot is a popular Java microservices framework. Allows you to create both small and large-scale applications. Spring boot integrates easily with other popular frameworks using inversion of control.
• Dropwizard - The Dropwizard framework is used to develop user-friendly, high-performance and restful web services. Supports configuration tools, application metrics, logging and operation without additional settings.
• Restlet - The Restlet framework follows the RST architectural style that helps Java developers build microservices. Accepted and maintained by the Apache Software License.
• Helidon - A collection of Java libraries for writing microservices. Easy to use, instrumented, microprofile support, reactive web server, observable and resilient.
• AxonIQ - An open source event-driven microservices framework focused on Command Query Responsibility Segregation (CQRS), Domain-Driven Design (DDD), and event scoring
• Micronaut is a full-stack JVM-based framework for building modular, easily testable microservice and serverless applications. Builds full featured microservices including dependency injection, autoconfiguration, service discovery, HTTP routing, and HTTP client. Micronaut strives to avoid the shortcomings of Spring, Spring Boot frameworks by providing faster startup times, reduced memory footprint, minimal use of reflection, and quiet unit testing.
• Lagom - An open source reactive microservices framework for Java or Scala. Lagom is based on Akka and Play.

2. GoLang

Several frameworks are available for developing microservices architecture using the Go programming language

• GoMicro - The RPC plug-in library provides the fundamental building blocks for writing microservices in Go. API gateway, interactive CLI, service proxy, templates and web panels are supported.

3. Python

There are several frameworks available for developing microservices architecture using the Python programming language:

• Flask - Web Server Gateway Interface (WSGI) A web-based lightweight microservices framework in Python. Flask-RESTPlus is a Flask extension that provides support for quickly building REST APIs.
• Falcon is an API web framework for building robust application backends and microservices in Python. The framework works great with both Asynchronous Server Gateway Interface (ASGI) and WSGI.
• Bottle - A fast, lightweight and simple WSGI microservice Python-based web framework. It is distributed as a single file module and has no dependencies other than the Python standard library.
• Nameko - Nameko framework for building microservices in Python with built-in support for RPC over AMQP, asynchronous events, HTTP GET and POST, and WebSocket RPC.
• CherryPy - CherryPy enables developers to build web applications using object-oriented programming in Python.

Conclusion

In the process of developing projects, enterprises and developer communities face the challenge of choosing the right microservices framework to quickly and cost-effectively build robust applications.

The choice of a framework should be based on industry acceptance, skill availability, community support, learning curve, ease of development, and confidence in best practices. IT organizations need to understand the pros and cons of the chosen framework and make sure that their solution does not interfere with future business and operational needs.