Software design trade-offs

Software design refers to the “how” of building your software application and is an important topic to consider and implement according to your specific business use-case. There is no one size fits all and a lot of times not understanding it leads to costly mistakes that take a lot of time and money to recover or even kill a business.

Software design trade offs are the decisions made during system architecture or component design that involve balancing competing priorities. Every design choice has benefits and costs, and understanding these trade offs helps teams make informed decisions that align with project goals.

Let’s look at an example of a  product-based start-up trying to build an MVP. If the goal is to test the idea and see if users will sign-up, then building the initial product with a complex  micro-services architecture with distributed caching and infinite scaling is an overkill. MVPs are proof of concepts and are so called because they are built in an environment where time to market is crucial and financial runway is minimal. You can’t use a complex design that ticks all the boxes at this stage as software design requires time and financial resources which are limited. Once the market is validated and the product is funded then it can be enhanced for scale. This is one example of a  trade-off that one needs to consider. Build small for MVPs and scale once PMF is validated.

When you go full throttle building your application, there are many trade-offs that you’ll have to make. Here are some common ones:

1. Scalability vs Simplicity - Monoliths are easy to build and deploy as there are less moving parts, however they are harder to scale. Microservices on the other hand have an overhead to manage different repositories and deployment pipelines but are easier to scale since they are a bunch of small working components connected together. It’s also easier to scale one particular function that has significant load than other parts of the app.

2. Security vs Usability - Security must be built into the design to prevent any compromised entry into the application, however this also creates friction points for the user and may drive them away from the application. 

3. Transaction replays vs re-execution - Event driven applications are able to trigger actions on services based on an incoming message and if the messages are persisted, then they can be replayed if there is a failure or outage on the application. On the contrary, in a monolith all incoming requests have to be recreated or resent from the source if the application was unavailable at the time they came in for execution.

4. Consistency vs Availability - In distributed systems, you often trade consistency (correct data) for availability (system responsiveness) during partitions, so in this case data may not be immediately up to date across nodes. This may be okay for non-critical applications like social media apps but may not work for emergency services or banking services for example where real time updates are required.

5. Generic vs specific solutions - Generic solutions work in many contexts but may be over-engineered. Specific solutions are fast to build but harder to reuse or extend.

How to decide

1. Identify the key trade offs relevant to your decision (e.g., consistency vs. availability).

2. List options (e.g., tech stacks, architecture patterns).

3. Score each option across relevant criteria (1–5 scale or qualitative notes).

4. Weigh what's most important (e.g., prioritize time-to-market for MVPs).

5. Document the decision and trade-offs clearly for future reference.

In summary, software design is fundamental and the trade-offs have to be thought through before building an application. There is no right or wrong  decision as the application changes over time and the design decisions once made also have to evolve accordingly. The key is to minimize the impact and adopt change early enough before it becomes very invasive.

At Tenafor, we help our clients identify trade-offs early in the software design process ensuring solutions are practical and provide maximum value at that specific stage of the business. If you need help in understanding what trade-offs you need to make to build your application, reach out to us for a free consultation at info@tenafor.com and we would be happy to hear you out!

This article can also be read at https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/software-design-trade-offs-tenafor-technologies-opc-private-l-wfa6c