5 Pitfalls of Using Micro Frontends and How to Avoid Them

Five pitfalls and coping strategies for micro front-end architecture

Micro front-end architecture is a modern architectural style that breaks the front-end application into independent deliverable units, which brings many advantages such as scalability, technology independence, and maintainability. However, in practical applications, we also encountered some challenges. This article will share five major problems we encountered in the process of using micro front-end architectures within two years, as well as corresponding solutions.

1. Repeated dependency

Each micro front-end application is independent, meaning they each have their own dependencies. This will cause the entire application to contain many different versions of the same library, causing the application volume to swell, affecting loading speed and SEO.

Solution:

1. Identify libraries that are common in all micro front-ends.
2. Create a shared micro front-end project that contains these public libraries.
3. Update all micro frontends to import the required libraries from shared projects.

It should be noted that sharing dependencies is not easy and requires careful planning and coordination.

2. Style conflict and overlap

Independent teams and technology stacks can lead to style conflicts and overlaps. The styles of each micro front-end should be consistent to avoid inconsistent UI and UX.

Solution:

• Strengthen communication between teams and ensure consistency in styles.
• Using tools such as styled-components in shared micro front-end projects can help resolve style conflict issues, but sacrifice partial independence.
• Add an ID for the front-end container and configure Webpack to insert that ID before each CSS rule to avoid style overwrite.
• Use CSS methodology such as BEM (block-element-modifier) ​​to ensure the uniqueness of class names.

3. Performance issues

Operating multiple JavaScript front-end applications simultaneously will reduce overall performance, because each framework instance requires CPU, memory, and network bandwidth resources. This problem may not be found when testing the micro front-end independently, and it will only be exposed when all micro front-ends run together.

Solution:

• Strengthen team communication and avoid duplicate calls and redundant calculations.
• Storage the results in places that are accessible to all micro front-ends, or communicate before performing time-consuming operations to avoid repeated operations.
• Environmental performance tests are performed on all micro front ends, rather than testing each micro front end individually.

4. Communication between micro front-end

Communication between micro front-ends becomes critical as application size grows, especially when repetitive operations are avoided.

Solution:

• Implement a custom message layer based on shared states (such as cookies or localStorage) or custom events.
• The additional overhead of communication needs to be weighed to ensure that the benefits it brings outweigh the costs.

5. Communication issues between teams

Multiple team collaboration can lead to duplication of code, waste of resources, and insufficient knowledge sharing.

Solution:

• Support communication and collaboration between teams from the beginning.
• Create shared projects to store reusable components and libraries.
• Establish a dedicated team responsible for maintaining shared projects and ensuring that they are updated in a timely manner.
• Cultivate a culture of communication and knowledge sharing among teams.

Conclusion

The micro front-end architecture is not a silver bullet, and its successful implementation relies on effective team communication and collaboration. Ignoring these issues can lead to project failure. By learning these lessons, we can better avoid or resolve pitfalls in micro front-end architectures, thereby building efficient and stable front-end applications.

Frequently Asked Questions for Micro Front-end Architecture Trap (FAQs)

The following are some FAQs about micro front-end architecture traps, and the content has been streamlined and rewritten according to the original text:

• Main Challenges: Architecture Complexity, Performance Issues, User Experience Consistency.
• Impact on team structure and collaboration: Promote small cross-functional teams, but require effective communication and coordination.
• Code duplication: may exist, but can be mitigated by sharing libraries and code sharing strategies.
• Impact on performance: May reduce performance, but can be optimized through technologies such as lazy loading, code segmentation and caching.
• User Experience Consistency: Powerful design systems and UX guides, as well as cross-team reviews and user testing.
• Test and debugging: More complex and requires powerful testing strategies and tools.
• Complexity: Increases complexity, but can be managed with clear guidelines, effective communication and project management practices.
• Deployment: Independent deployment, speed up the deployment cycle, but coordination is required to avoid conflicts.
• Security hazards: Every micro front-end may have security vulnerabilities and requires strong security practices.
• Scalability: Scalability independently, but requires planning and coordination.

I hope the above information will be helpful to you.

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