Micro Frontend Architecture: Benefits, Implementation, and Best Practices

Quick Summary: One of the best strategies for creating front ends is adopting the micro front-end architecture. This blog will provide you with all the required information about micro frontend, its benefits, implementation, and more. Get to know everything from A-Z about this innovative design approach in this blog.

With the ever-rising need for a scalable and simple application architecture, micro frontend has become a popular approach for enterprise applications. Developers have been facing many challenges with traditional monolithic architecture including flexibility and scalability.

When using monolithic architecture, complexity, and inconsistent code become a nightmare for developers in frontend development. Micro frontends overcome lots of challenges of rigid architecture providing more flexibility and decoupled codebases.

Micro frontends follow the same approach as modern microservices architecture and the front-end is divided into several modules instead of a single artifact. There are many advantages of choosing micro frontends including enhanced performance and easy maintenance. Keep reading for an in-depth view of micro frontends to decide when and why you should choose it. Also, you will get a comprehensive understanding of how a leading front-end development company can help you successfully implement it.

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What is Microfrontend?

Micro Frontend is an architectural pattern for web application development that is inspired by the micro service architecture. Microservices provide a modern approach to building applications by breaking an entire application into smaller modules or services. As per data, microservices architecture is being used by 85% of large organizations. Micro frontends follow the same principles and the frontend is split into standalone modules. It makes front-end development easy and flexible.

Check the following video from freeCodeCamp to understand the micro frontend and how to implement it.

Top Five Benefits of Micro Frontends

There is a wide range of micro frontend benefits covering different aspects of web application development. It not only improves performance but also provides an architecture that can be easily modified and maintained. Check out all the benefits of micro frontend architectures below.

1. Code Decoupling

The beauty of microservices architecture is the decoupling of components. Micro frontends are built on the lines of microservices with decoupled codebases. Like microservices, the micro frontend is made of disparate elements that make it easy to manage and modify the code. So, there are smoother development, testing, and deployment cycles.

2. Scalability

Another advantage of microfront is seamless scalability. Decoupled front ends with a modular architecture make it easy to upscale or downscale. Because the change in a micro front-end element has no effect on other parts of the front end, you can easily focus on growth.

3. Automation

Automation can help to overcome challenges related to multiple elements. However, microservices enable you to leverage a fast feedback loop with an optimized CI/CD pipeline. This allows you to benefit from automation and to expedite the process.

4. Easy Maintenance

Maintenance becomes a true challenge with monolith systems because of their increasing complexity. However, micro front ends simplify maintenance by breaking codebase into more manageable chunks of code.

5. Reusability

Micro front end architecture offers a reusable structure. As a result, you can reuse code for a variety of applications. It helps you avoid reinventing the wheel by using already available components.

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How Do You Implement Micro Frontend Architecture?

This section provides you with information on how you can proceed if you want to implement a micro frontend for your project. The following are some popular micro frontend implementation techniques.

Build Time Integration

This approach allows developers to build individual applications. Every micro frontend is a separate application built with a suitable tech stack. Each of the micro frontends is packaged in a single deployment bundle using tools like Parcel and Webpack. This final bundle is compiled and deployed to the server.

Runtime Integration

It’s an alternative approach to micro front-end implementations. It offers more flexibility in setting up micro frontends. Every micro frontend is built and deployed as an individual standalone application. All the micro frontends are integrated and loaded with a client-side layer using any JavaScript framework. The integration layers manage all micro frontends like an app shell and establish communication and routing among micro frontends.

Hybrid Integration

It combines the approaches of build time and runtime integrations. Different applications require varying levels of coupling. A hybrid approach is more beneficial in those situations. So, some micro frontends are implemented with build time integration, and some are implemented with runtime integration.

Challenges in Implementing Micro Frontends

Setting up micro front end architecture has its own benefits and pitfalls. You should understand the effect on performance and the trade-offs before making your decision to micro frontend development.

• Organizing teams for different micro frontends and assigning them responsibilities.
• Handling cross-functional requirements like error handling and authentication.
• Proper testing to ensure smooth functioning of different frontend modules.
• Data sharing and communication across different modules of the front end.

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Popular Frameworks to Implement Micro Frontends

The following are the best frontend frameworks you can choose from for building microfrontends applications.

Micro Frontend Architecture with React

React.js is a popular front-end framework and it is best for component-based coding. With features like Virtual DOM, ReactJS is suitable for creating optimized and quality front ends. There are many types of existing solutions available with React.js that enable developers to speed up coding.

Micro Frontend Architecture with Angular

Angular meets the best practices of microfrontends because of well-defined architecture. It also supports mono repository principles that provide a single repository to store many projects. Most of the core functionality of this front-end framework is modularized making it a highly flexible framework for front-end development. Implementing micro frontend with AngularJS development offers many benefits.

Micro Frontend Architecture with VueJS

Just like React.js, Vue.js also supports Virtual DOM that offers optimized code. VueJS supports MVVM (Model-View-ViewModel) architecture that divides applications into three components namely Model, View, and ViewModel. It separates the View components from business logic. This component-based architecture provides the flexibility to create microfrontends.

Best Micro Frontend Development Practices to Cope with Challenges

Micro frontends are gaining popularity, and they offer lots of benefits in web development. However, they also pose some challenges that you can handle with the following good micro frontend development practices.

• Use API-first principles: Choose an API-first approach to build your web application with a clear boundary between the front-end and back-end. APIs will provide communication between these two components.
• Adopt automation: Whether you choose the mono repo or poly repo approach, both of them have pros and cons. However, teams can streamline the micro front-end development process with automation. Automation can also help teams to meet the required quality standards.
• Choose the right balance: The challenge with micro front-end implementation is how to break the front-end into micro-size fronts. Too many frontend micro elements will require a bigger team to manage and too few elements would not yield the results. The best approach is to divide frontends according to business purposes.
• Effective communication: Every micro frontend is designed, developed, and tested separately but they need to communicate with each other. Hence, the micro frontend should handle outgoing and incoming events.
• Align workflow with business objectives: Successful implementation of micro frontend architecture requires different teams that work separately according to the responsibilities assigned to them. Hence, it is crucial to define rules and responsibilities for different teams for seamless workflow.

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To Wrap UpDeveloping a flexible frontend is crucial to build an application that will offer seamless experience across devices. And a top-notch front-end development company like Radixweb can help you integrate latest front-end innovations like micro frontends, that makes the applicationmore flexible.Micro frontends have evolved to help developers combat various development challenges in developing modern web applications. It helps developers overcome the difficulties of monolithic architecture and enables them to build a robust front end with independent pieces of code.You can leverage the micro front-end to build highly customized web applications with the help of Radixweb. Our developers are proficient in micro frontend architecture with solid experience in creating decoupled applications. You can hire and benefit from their expertise in popular front-end frameworks like Angular, React, and VueJS to build high-performance and scalable applications.Let us help you modernize existing applications with micro front end implementation. We will analyze and micro-size your front end with the right modules. You can simply contact us and tell us your requirements to give us a chance to assist you.