Beautiful in theory
Micro-frontends extend the microservices philosophy to the frontend: instead of one monolithic React app, you split the UI into independently deployable pieces owned by different teams. Team A owns the product catalog, Team B owns checkout, Team C owns the account dashboard. Each team picks their own tech stack, deploys on their own schedule, and doesn't block anyone else. In theory, it's beautiful. In practice, it's complicated.
Benefits at scale
The benefits are real — but only at scale. If you have 3+ frontend teams working on the same product and stepping on each other's toes, micro-frontends solve a genuine coordination problem. Independent deployments mean Team A can ship a fix without waiting for Team B's release train. Isolated codebases mean a bug in checkout doesn't crash the product catalog. Team autonomy means faster hiring and onboarding because each team owns a smaller, focused codebase.
The hidden costs
The costs are equally real. Shared state becomes a distributed systems problem. Design consistency requires a robust design system and governance. Performance suffers if you're loading multiple frameworks. User experience can feel disjointed if teams don't coordinate on navigation, loading states, and error handling. Module Federation (Webpack 5) and import maps help with the technical wiring, but they don't solve the organizational challenges.
Our rule of thumb
Our rule of thumb: if you have fewer than 20 frontend developers, a well-structured monolith with clear module boundaries will serve you better. Use a monorepo with Turborepo or Nx, enforce code ownership with CODEOWNERS files, and deploy the whole app. You get most of the organizational benefits without the distributed systems tax. Save micro-frontends for when the monolith genuinely can't scale — and when you have the platform engineering team to support the infrastructure.