Micro Frontend Architecture: How To Use It?

Software development has changed significantly due to the popularity of contemporary web applications, especially in the design and implementation of frontends. Conventional monolithic architectures frequently find it difficult to handle the growing scale and complexity of applications in the modern world. Presenting Micro Frontend Architecture, a microservices-inspired design pattern first presented by ThoughtWorks Technology Radar in 2016.

The user interface (UI) is divided into smaller, independent modules by micro frontends, each of which is in charge of a distinct aspect of the application as a whole. Micro frontends provide a sophisticated answer to the difficulties of creating intricate web applications, much like how microservices transformed backend development.

We'll examine the concept, applications, and architecture of micro frontends in this guide, as well as the reasons they're quickly taking the lead in contemporary UI development.

What Are Micro Front-Ends?

Micro front-ends are the modern approach in front-end web development wherein the UI of an application is divided into small, independent modules called "micro apps." In this approach, each micro app is self-contained, allowing for its development, testing, and deployment just like the microservices model is used in the backend.

It's possible to write and control smaller parts of the website as isolated units of work. All aspects of each module, from database to UI, are developed by multidisciplinary teams and built around concrete business objectives to facilitate efficiency.

Although inspired by earlier concepts like Self-Contained Systems, micro front-ends are much lighter and more practical for today's complex web applications. Businesses like Spotify have embraced this architecture to build scalable, flexible applications, treating websites as collections of manageable, independently developed features.

What Is Micro Frontend Architecture?

A modern approach to web development, the micro frontend architecture breaks down a frontend application into smaller, independent, and self-contained modules, each functioning like an individual project. Teams can develop, test, and deploy individual components.

With a micro frontend, smaller, more independent teams will be able to handle specific parts of the application. This can reduce complexity and minimize interdependencies, thus increasing the speed at which development takes place. Large-scale applications tend to benefit highly from this concept as it simplifies updates and maintenance.

This modularity provides independence to the micro frontend architecture for each of its components, such that they manage their data, routing, and sometimes even their backends. With clear ownership comes better scalability and easier troubleshooting of parts of an application.

The demand for web applications that are scalable, agile, and maintainable has brought forward micro frontend architecture as one of the important solutions for flexible, productivity improvement, and smooth development processes.

How Do Micro Front-Ends Work?

A micro frontend can be a standalone page or a specific section within a page, and it can integrate with workflows across adjacent pages. This modular approach is different from the traditional monolithic frontends because each micro frontend can be developed, deployed, tested, maintained, and updated independently without affecting the core application.

Micro frontends are designed to be highly flexible and efficient, only loading the components required for a specific page or feature. The components handle their own data and route requests directly to the source of the data, not needing a central server. Decentralized communication results in faster performance and reduces dependencies.

A development team builds each of the components of a micro frontend as a standalone module. They are dynamically injected into the application at runtime and ensure smooth running. Apart from content display elements, it is also integrated with user interface components and utility functions to increase the interactivity level within the application.

Types Of Micro Frontends

Micro frontends can be organized in three main ways:

1. Monorepository

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All the micro frontend projects are stored in a single repository. Each project lives in a subfolder with shared dependencies. It simplifies the version control but reduces independence. Angular's default setup is an example.

2. Multirepository



Each micro frontend has its repository. This ensures independence and flexibility with separate dependencies for each project. However, it is more complex to manage multiple repositories.

3. Metarepository

It combines monorepo and multirepo approaches. Projects are in separate repositories but are integrated through a central repository. It balances flexibility and integration but requires careful management.

Micro Frontends Benefits

Micro frontends present several advantages over monolithic architectures, addressing issues like the above.

1. Speed of Deployment and Releases

While independent teams may work on features independently and can deploy them together, it leads to faster release time compared with a monolithic system.

2. Independent Teams

Each micro frontend is owned by a separate team, including build, testing, and deploying their part independently. That reduces interdependency among teams as teams can proceed independently.

3. Technology Flexibility

Teams can choose a different technology stack depending on their proficiency and the needs of the project.

4. Scalability

Features can be scaled independently, which makes the process much cheaper and faster compared to scaling an entire monolithic system.

5. Deployment

Micro frontends allow developers to make incremental updates without affecting the application at large. Roll-back of one component is easier also, enhancing flexibility and reducing risks.

When Should You Use Micro Frontends?

Micro frontends are best for large, complex applications with diversified functionalities. The scalability or the team autonomy is going to become a challenge if the application is set up as monolithic.

It works best if the application can be divided into isolated functional modules. For example,

• Smartphone Apps Analogy: Just like dialer, contacts, and messaging apps on the phone, which operate independently but can interact when required.
• University Admin System: Student profile management, staff profile management, course schedule management, and exam result management are all good examples of modular design.

Micro Frontend Integration Approaches

There is a slider with separation and complexity, where there are common integration approaches to micro frontends as follows:

• Routing: Every route loads an independent micro frontend; with a shell handling requests via API gateway or CDN, it supports minimal data sharing.
• NPM Packages: It is packaged as NPM modules. Simple integration occurs, but then the single-dependency versions bring in cross-team release dependencies.
• IFrame-Based: The micro frontends are embedded as iframes inside an SPA. Although it keeps the separation in place, the issue of security and data sharing is a bit difficult to handle.
• Web Components: Isolated components are hosted as.js files and loaded inside specific placeholders. However, performance issues will surface because of the size.
• Module Federation: This approach was introduced in Webpack 5. This allows micro frontends to load into a shell at runtime, without build-time dependencies, making it flexible for customized pages.

Micro Frontend Challenges

• Integration Complexity: Multiple micro frontends create integration problems while trying to ensure that the components communicate and share data consistently.
• Additional Overhead: Independent deployments and versioning may lead to more overhead in terms of management and maintenance.
• Performance Issues: The consideration of loading multiple micro frontends leads to application performance issues due to issues in bundle size and loads.
• Consistency in User Experience: The same user experience might not be very consistent across all the micro front ends since each team will have their design practices and standards.
• Interdependence between Teams: Though teams work independently, changes in one micro frontend may demand updates in another micro frontend that would make it hard to have a smooth release process.

Real-life Examples of Successful Micro Frontend Implementations

eBay

eBay employs micro frontends to allow different website sections to be managed by independent teams, thereby speeding up the development process and making updates flexible.

Spotify

Spotify's micro frontend approach splits functionalities between teams to allow rapid innovation and feature rollout without disrupting the entire system.

IKEA

IKEA uses the combination of Edge Side Includes (ESI) and Client Side Includes (CSI) in its e-commerce so that independent teams can manage sections such as product listings and shopping carts for a better user experience.

Netflix

Netflix makes use of a microservices architecture to support millions of users so that teams can work independently on features such as search and playback.

Amazon

Amazon uses microservices for customer accounts, order processing, and inventory management. It is possible to continuously deliver features without stability compromises.

Uber

Uber's modular architecture has microservices for ride requests and payment processing. It can scale quickly and deliver a seamless user experience.

Best Practices With Micro Frontends

Workflow Organization

Have teams operate independently with clear lines of responsibilities and objectives. Design contracts for API interactions that teams will look for to be consistent.

Align Business Requirements

Align the needs of a business to micro frontend delivery. Avoid monolithic approaches. Ensure that the requirements benefit from being delivered incrementally, rather than as a whole chunk.

Find the Right Size for Micro Frontends

Strive for a balanced size of the micro frontends. They must be big enough to give relevant functionality but not too big that they fragment into multiple pieces. Every micro frontend must have a clearly defined business purpose.

Limit the Number of Micro Frontends

Micro frontends can easily lead to excessive fragmentation by having too many micro frontends. Too many will dilute the value of an application, and it also makes the application structure complex.

Single Page Application (SPA)

Design each micro frontend as a single-page application (SPA) using frameworks like Vue, ReactJS, Angular, or Svelte. This allows for seamless integration without constant updates.

Standard Communication

Utilize a standard event bus in communicating micro frontends across each other. This makes sure that each module operates independently and, at the same time, manages the incoming and outgoing events effectively.

Component Libraries

Module organization into libraries should be based on the technology stack of the main application. This allows the main application to incorporate different components seamlessly.

Final Thoughts

Modular, flexible, and scalable approaches to building complex applications describe micro frontends. Therefore, teams within an organization can achieve rapid development cycles and improve the user experience by having the autonomy to work on different components independently. However, this comes at a cost of proper planning, communication, and best practices without allowing things to fragment and lose their cohesiveness.

As technology continues to transform the digital horizon, micro frontends help the business position to respond faster, add new functionality with greater ease, and optimize development flows. However, the actual promise of micro frontends can only be delivered with a good balance between autonomy and integration; by this means, teams are facilitated to come out with innovation through efficiency in producing solutions, whereas users would benefit from a smooth user experience.