An architectural paradigm is the fundamental organizing structure of a software system — it defines how components are decomposed, how they communicate, and how the system evolves. Choosing the right paradigm is one of the most consequential and costly-to-reverse decisions in system design.
Overview
mindmap
root((Architectural\nParadigms))
Monolithic
Traditional Monolith
Modular Monolith
Microservices
Independent Services
API Gateway
Service Mesh
Event-Driven
Event Sourcing
CQRS
Pub/Sub
Streaming
Serverless
FaaS
BaaS
Edge Functions
SOA
Enterprise Service Bus
SOAP/WSDL
Service Registry
Cell-Based
Cell Units
Cell Routers
Blast Radius Control
Space-Based
Processing Units
Virtualized Middleware
Data Grid
Reactive
Responsive
Resilient
Elastic
Message-Driven
Paradigm Selection Guide
flowchart TD
A[New System Design] --> B{Team Size?}
B -->|Small, 1-5 devs| C{Expected Scale?}
B -->|Large, 10+ teams| D[Microservices / Cell-Based]
C -->|Low to medium| E[Monolith]
C -->|Very high| F{Traffic Pattern?}
F -->|Spiky, unpredictable| G[Serverless]
F -->|Steady, high volume| H{Coupling tolerance?}
H -->|Low coupling needed| I[Event-Driven]
H -->|Tight SLA coupling| J[Microservices]
E --> K[Consider Modular Monolith first]
D --> L[Consider Cell-Based for blast radius]
Topics in This Section
| File | Topic | Key Concepts |
|---|---|---|
| 01_monolithic_architecture.md | Monolithic | Modular monolith, strangler fig, vertical slicing |
| 02_microservices_architecture.md | Microservices | Service boundaries, API gateway, service mesh |
| 03_event_driven_architecture.md | Event-Driven | CQRS, event sourcing, pub/sub, choreography |
| 04_serverless_architecture.md | Serverless | FaaS, cold starts, event triggers, cost model |
| 05_soa.md | SOA | ESB, service contracts, governance |
| 06_cell_based_architecture.md | Cell-Based | Blast radius, cell routers, isolation |
| 07_space_based_architecture.md | Space-Based | In-memory grid, processing units, elastic scale |
| 08_reactive_architecture.md | Reactive | Reactive manifesto, backpressure, actor model |