Performance Comparison of Monolithic and Microservices Architectures in Handling High-Volume Transactions

Monolithic and microservices are two distinct approaches for designing and developing applications. However, these architectures exhibit contrasting characteristics. In monolithic architecture, all components of an application form a unified entity with closely interconnected parts, whereas microservices decompose an application into independent, lightweight services that can be developed, deployed, and updated separately. Microservices are often regarded as superior to monolithic architectures in terms of their performance. This study aims to compare the performance of monolithic and microservices architectures in handling a high volume of transactions. It is important to observe how the two architectures behave when handling transactions from a large number of concurrent users. A prototype of an online ticketing system was implemented for both architectures to enable comparative analysis. The selected performance metrics were response time and error rate. The experimental results reveal that under high-load conditions, microservices outperform monolithic architectures, demonstrating 36% faster response times and 71% fewer errors. However, under overload conditions—when CPU usage exceeds 90%—the performance of microservices degrades significantly. This does not imply that microservices cannot handle a large number of concurrent users but highlights the necessity for enhanced resource management.