In the ever-evolving landscape of web development, rich user experience through high-performing web applications is crucial to ensure success and growth. Whether you are a small business or a multi-national company, your developers must have faced different challenges and abnormalities especially during the front-end development of applications. Building, maintaining, deploying, and delivering high-quality web apps that provide enhanced user experience necessitates competent developers and sophisticated deployment methods. In such a situation, micro front-end architecture has gained immense popularity and emerged as a perfect solution for achieving high efficiency and effectiveness of applications.
According to a survey, around 35% of developers said that they are using micro front-ends, and 55% said that they are going to use them. These statistics show that Micro Front-end Architecture is the present and future of web development. It not only enhances application performance and functionality but also streamlines the development process by allowing separate management and deployment of its components. If you are a front-end developer or a company looking to know more about this emerging architecture, this blog is for you. In this blog, we will discuss Micro Front-end Architecture including its meaning, benefits, usage and implementation.
What Is Micro Front-end Architecture?
Micro Front-end Architecture is a modern approach in front-end development that breaks down a monolithic front-end application into smaller, manageable, self-contained units called micro front-ends. The micro front-ends can operate independently, allowing teams to work independently on different parts of the front-end. This means developers can develop, deploy and update the components separately. This approach ensures scalable, maintainable, and smooth solutions that make app development much quicker and more efficient. Developers can use this architecture to integrate multiple front-end frameworks and libraries into a single web page. Its main components are:
User-Interface Components: It includes UI Components such as layouts, buttons, and data display that handle user interaction and are implemented through HTML, CSS and JavaScript.
Core Components: It contains API clients and data models that provide the app's intended functionality through data management and business logic implementation.
Integration Components: It contains gateways, routing, and versioning that act as binding agents that join micro front-ends in a user interface, allowing them to communicate and function together.
How does Micro Front-end Architecture work?
Micro Front-end Architecture breaks down a monolithic front-end into smaller, independent and deployable components that support the development of large web applications. These small components, called micro front-ends, are in charge of specific sections or functions of the user interface that can be developed, deployed, and maintained separately by different teams. Here's how micro front-end architecture works:
Identify Different Features
The first step in designing a micro front-end architecture is identifying different features. Identify which features and parts of the application can be separated into smaller, individual micro front-ends. Make sure that each micro front-end should contain a certain feature or capability.
Assign each feature to a micro front-end
Once the developer identifies different features, it's time to assign each feature to a micro front-end. This assigning can be done based on the business domain, functionality, characteristics, or any other common criteria that make sense for the application. After that, establish clear responsibilities for each individual micro front-end, such as its data, APIs, etc.
Develop each micro front-end
Each micro front-end should be created and maintained by a separate team. Each team should follow its own preferred technology stack, development techniques, technologies and release cycles. This enables each team to concentrate on a specific component of the application, making it easier to create, test, and deploy the micro front-ends. For example, one team is responsible for the homepage, one for search results, one for product information, and one for the shopping cart.
Compose the micro front-ends
Although the micro front-ends are developed individually, they need to be composed into a single application for seamless working. To do this, you can use techniques such as single-page applications, iframes, web components, containerized deployments, etc.
What are the Benefits of Micro Front-end Architecture?
Micro Front-end architecture not only makes development and deployment easier but also offers other benefits, which increases its demand and usage. Have a look at some of its important benefits below:
Independent Development and Deployment
Micro front-end architecture allows teams to develop and deploy monolithic application components independently and separately, ensuring reduced dependency and bottlenecks. When development, deployment, and maintenance are separate, the release cycle can be faster. For example, suppose Team A is done with the work, whereas Team B needs time for completion. In such a scenario, due to individual development and no dependency, Team A can go ahead with the release.
Higher Performance
In a monolithic application, the initial loading time is high due to the loading of the complete application, including the unusable components. On the other hand, in Micro front-end architecture, micro front-ends or specific modules-load only when required, which makes the website run faster and reduces initial loading time.
More Flexibility
Micro front-end is a flexible architecture that allows different teams to work on different components of the website. This reduces dependency, which results in faster adaptation to new trends and changing customer needs. Besides that, it provides the flexibility to use any technology per their needs, allowing developers to experiment with emerging technologies and enhance performance.
Short Development Time
Micro front-end architecture allows individual developers to develop different parts of the application, which results in quick development. When development is fast, applications and their updates are also released quickly. Moreover, when developers can update and replace modules quickly without breaking the existing codebase, it results in better decisions and shorter development time.
Easier Maintenance
Maintenance is one of the biggest challenges with monolithic applications due to their high complexity. Micro front-end architecture simplifies maintenance by breaking the codebase into smaller, manageable components that are easier to manage and fix problems. Each team can manage its code separately without affecting the other, which reduces the scope of error and streamlines bug fixing.
Enhanced Scalability
Scalability is crucial for staying relevant and competitive in this evolving business world. Micro front-end architecture allows developers to create a highly scalable application that can be scaled up according to the business demands. Due to individual components and development, development teams can scale up different components individually without impacting the other components and speed of the application.
Reduced Risk
One of the biggest challenges in monolithic applications is the dependency of one component on another, which ultimately increases the overall risk. However, in the Micro Front-end Framework, if one part of the website has a problem, it does not affect other parts and the application's performance. The development team can handle the issue separately without making the website go down.
Reusable Code
Micro Front-end Architecture allows you to use the same code in several contexts, saving time and money that would otherwise be spent in starting from scratch. This clearly means that a single micro front-end can be created and utilized by several teams for various purposes. This minimizes development time as well as enhances productivity.
Use Different Technologies
The design of micro-front-ends is not dependent on specific technology. Micro front-ends can be built with a variety of technologies, languages, and frameworks (including JavaScript, React, Vue, and Angular). This provides high flexibility in development as each component can be built with the most suitable technology that enhances its functionality and performance.
How Do You Implement Micro Front-end Architecture?
Implementing a Micro Front-end Architecture requires correct knowledge and an experienced developer to ensure seamless integration without causing any problems to the application. There are three popular micro front-end implementation techniques, which include:
Build Time Integration
This approach allows developers to build separate applications with separate micro front-ends built using a suitable tech stack. These micro front-ends have their own development environment where they can be developed, deployed, and maintained separately. This makes it easy for developers to work on each micro end independently without affecting other micro front-ends.
Runtime Integration
This is a more flexible approach to integrating micro front-end architecture. Every micro front-end is developed and deployed as a separate standalone application that uses on-demand loading with a shorter initial loading time. The micro front-ends are integrated using JavaScript frameworks, with a client-side layer that manages all micro front-ends and facilitates communication.
Hybrid Integration
As the name implies, it combines build time and runtime integration techniques. This is the ideal approach for applications requiring varying degrees of coupling flexibility. Depending on the requirements, certain micro front-ends are integrated using build time and others using run-time. Build time micro front-ends are combined in a single deployment, while runtime micro front-ends are deployed separately.
Conclusion
Micro front-end framework is a powerful approach for building applications efficiently and quickly. It allows developers to develop, deploy and manage various components of the application separately, which eliminates dependence on each other and provides greater flexibility, scalability and performance. This agile approach provides enhanced user experience and faster development, reduces risk and allows you to adapt to the rapidly changing landscape. So, it can be a great step towards a more modular and flexible front-end development that ensures high productivity and success.
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