Best Microservices Frameworks for Development

Today, the chief way for any business to reach out to its audience is via an application. Though there are various methods to make an app, why do you think 10% fail? As per CBInsights, 10% of startups fail due to a mistimed product.

Among the various other reasons, one is the slow development process! And this slow development process is encouraged by development tools that do not support developers in terms of speed. Solution? You guessed it right, microservices frameworks.

You see, the monolithic architecture used before slowed down the developers as the app was coded as one unit, top to bottom. The encapsulation of all the essential units of an app made it tough for developers to maintain, upgrade, and debug it. Hence, it led to slowing down and complications in the development process. However, microservices architecture has resolved all these issues.

As per stats, around 85% of the respondents from large organizations state that they use microservices. As the use of microservices is elevating and market competition is cut-throat, it is imperative for software developers to choose the best microservices framework.

Here in this article, we will highlight some of the best microservices frameworks for your business.

What are Microservices and Their Benefits?

The technical definition of Microservices is like this!

It is a service-oriented architecture where a large application is built as a collection of various small independent units. These units can be various features and modules that communicate with each other via well-defined APIs.

To understand it better, here is an example!

Let’s say there is an organization with 4 teams supervised by 4 managers. Each team is responsible for a single task. If there is a change required in one task, only four people need to be informed about it, not the entire team, saving time for other teams. However, if there was only one team working on four tasks collectively, all of them had to be summoned to pass the message. This would waste a lot of time and effort that has been already put in.

As all 4 teams work on their respective tasks, it becomes easier to track progress and make changes whenever required.

Microservices work in the same way. If an app has four features, all of them will be developed as 4 independent units and will coordinate with each other via APIs. There are numerous pros of microservices architecture.

1. Scalability

One of the key benefits of microservices architecture is scalability. If your app succeeds and your customer base expands, you can easily scale it. The dedicated modules of the app or software can be easily altered without disturbing the other parts of the app. It is also helpful if you want to add additional features.

2. Easy and faster deployment

Microservices allow continuous integration and continuous delivery. Hence, developers can try out new ideas and check if they work. If not, they can easily roll back and try again. As the process is swift and easy, one can launch the app faster than their competitors.

3. Resilience

Resilience here means that the app can sustain itself if one or two features or modules fail. Unlike monolithic architecture, microservices are more resilient to errors and bugs.

4. Code reusability

Each module in a microservices architecture app is independent. Therefore, if the code required for multiple modules is the same, it can be used multiple times while writing it from scratch only once. This saves a lot of time and effort for the developers.

5. Agility

Microservices architecture allows organizations to divide teams based on the different modules or services of the app. This keeps the scope of their project small and allows them to be more efficient and faster at it. Overall, the development time is decreased and throughput is enhanced.

Top Microservices Frameworks for Development!

If you want to leverage the benefits of the microservices frameworks, you need to begin developing websites using microservices frameworks. As it can be tough to pick out one, we have described some of the best ones here!

Oracle Helidon

Oracle is one of the newest microservices frameworks that can significantly enhance the development experience of Java EE developers. It has a set of brilliant Java libraries that are ideal for writing microservices applications. Oracle Helidon is of two types, namely

• Helidon MP:

Helidon has some great features to build microservices apps such as cloud-native tools (Docker and Kubernetes), gRPC Support, Distributed Config Management, etc. Helidon MP also supports authentication, authorization, and audit.

• Helidon SE: 

It is a compact toolkit that features reactive streams, fluent style APIs, and asynchronous and functional programming. On top of all, it also supports GraalVM native images. It is to ensure a smaller footprint and faster startup.

Helidon also features APIs like JSON-P/B and JAX-RS for faster and more responsive applications.

Spring Boot

Spring Boot is somehow the titan among the microservices frameworks. Why? It has some of the best features required in a microservices framework, such as

• Easy to integrate: The Inversion of Control feature of Spring Boot makes it easy to integrate with other frameworks.
• Database extensions: It features various modules like Spring JDBC, Spring, Spring JPA, etc. to integrate with prominent databases.
• Cloud support: Spring is easy to deploy on Docker, DevOps, Kubernetes, and other cloud platforms.
• Reactive microservices apps: Spring Boot utilizes rest API and MVC architecture to build reactive microservices apps.
• Optimum performance: You get superior performance backed by load balancing and caching support of Spring Boot.

Quarkus

If you are a Kubernetes fan, then you are surefire to fall for Quarkus. Why? Well, it is a container-first framework developed with the motive of offering a wide range of distributed app architectures to the developers. Here are some of its coolest features!

• Faster boot time: The app boot time is super swift with Quarkus. The build-time metadata processing mechanism and standalone native images built using Graal or Substrate VM support this feature.
• Extension-support: Quarkus is well-equipped to support various useful extensions, such as RabbitMQ, Hibernate, Kafka, etc.
• Quick hot reloads: The framework can auto-detect recent alterations made to Java and other configuration files. Further, it also re-compiles and deploys the changes. Hence, providing faster hot reloads.
• Documentation: Quarkus is backed by a lot of communities on the web, providing a lot of simplified documentation.

GoMicro

GoMicro is kind of a unique microservices framework that helps in handling hardcore application development projects. It is a pluggable RPC (remote procedure call) library that offers all the basic resources to write microservices apps.

Other than pluggability, there are many other features that make it unique.

• Templates: To make it easy for the developers, GoMicro provides pre-made templates for writing microservices for the app or software.
• Interactive dashboard: The GoMicro interactive dashboard allows developers to keep track of all the services. They can even query the services directly.
• Service proxy: The framework has a transparent proxy for offload service discovery, message encoding, load balancing, and more. It can be run independently or parallel to the service.
• CLI: The CLI of the framework allows the developers to understand the happenings in a microservice by providing commands.

Eclipse Vert.X

Among all the frameworks described so far, Vert.X is the most popular and feature-loaded one. It is developed by the famous Eclipse foundation and offers support for multiple languages.

• Lightweight: The best thing about the Eclipse Vert.X framework is that it is super lightweight. The framework is just 650kb in size.
• Fast and modular: Eclipse Vert.X is made super fast and modular so that you can develop and run apps wherever you want.
• Wide range of components and libraries: Developers get access to a wide range of components and libraries like Vertx circuit breaker, Vert.X config, gRPC support, service proxies, etc.

One key pro of Eclipse Vert.X over other frameworks is that it is Polyglot.

How to Shortlist the Best Framework for your software or app?

Well, if you are still scratching your head deciding which framework to choose, here are some factors to take care of!

1. Learning curve

Consider the learning curve of the framework. Most microservices frameworks have a shallow learning curve. Hence, developers can learn it easily and get to work quickly. Templates are a great way to make things easier.

2. Automation support

Look for automation support in the framework. It means that the deployment and implementation of microservices should be automated to save time.

3. Continuous integration

When choosing a framework, look for a continuous integration feature as it allows developers to add code to the repository several times. It can be further verified by automated build and test frameworks.

4. Independent deployment

Check if the framework has four aspects, such as portability, reusability, upward compatibility, and downward compatibility.

5. Ease of development

Make sure that the frameworks have tools and IDEs that allow rapid app development. These tools enhance developers’ productivity and ensure faster project outcomes.

Conclusion

So, these are some of the best microservices frameworks that can be used to make the software development process faster and more efficient. And it is high time for you to incorporate them into your workflow. Make sure that you align all your requirements before choosing any of them. However, all the frameworks mentioned on the list are top-notch.