ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Monolithic application

Okay kiddo, let me explain to you what a monolithic application means. Monolithic is a big word, isn't it? It is like a giant, big piece of cake or toy that is made of only one piece or part. Just like that, a monolithic application is a big program that is made up of only one codebase, which means it is just one big piece of software.

Imagine a Lego castle. With a monolithic application, everything is built into the castle, the walls, the roof, the doors, and the windows, all in one piece. It is like having a Lego castle that is glued together into a monolithic building. This type of application is different from a microservices architecture where the application is divided into smaller, independent pieces.

A monolithic application can be quite complex, and it can have many different functionalities, just like a big toy that has lots of buttons to press and lots of things to do. For example, a Monolithic application can be a shopping website that has a product search, a shopping cart and a payment process, all integrated into one big program.

However, sometimes, when new features or functionalities are added to a monolithic application, it can cause complications because changing one part can affect other parts of the code, like pulling one toy out of a glued-together Lego castle can make the whole thing crumble.

So, to sum it up, a monolithic application is like a big toy or castle made of one piece or codebase, that has all the functionalities and features built-in. It is different from a microservices architecture where the application is divided into smaller, independent pieces.