Monoliths vs Microservices: Are We Overcomplicating Everything?

Heard “monoliths bad, microservices good” a few too many times? In this episode of SEEK Bytes, engineers Elliott Millar, Will Lark and Seamus Kearney pull apart the hype and get real about monoliths, microservices and monorepos – when each makes sense, and how messy the definitions get once you’re in real systems. From tiny startup apps and internal admin tools to large, distributed platforms with dozens of squads, they walk through scalability, deployment, team ownership, dependency nightmares and why a well‑built monolith can still be a great choice – even in 2025. In this episode, we explore: • What a monolith really is (beyond “big ball of mud”) – single codebases, single deploys, scale‑up limits and why they’re so powerful for early‑stage products and small teams • How microservices and distributed systems change the game on scalability, reliability and ownership – along with new headaches in orchestration, testing, dependencies and people‑coordination • Where monorepos fit in, why “good vs bad” isn’t the right lens, and how organisation, boundaries and team design matter more than chasing the latest architecture trend If you’re a backend or full‑stack engineer, architect or tech lead wrestling with “Should we split this up?”, this episode is for you. 🔔 Follow the SEEK Bytes podcast so you never miss a new episode