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# Goodbye Microservices, Hello Self-Contained Systems


- **Date:** Thursday, Jul 9, 2026
- **Time:** 10:10–10:40 (30 min)
- **Room:** Stage 5
- **Event:** World Congress 2026 Europe

## Recording

[Watch recording](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/videos/100009-goodbye-microservices-hello-self-contained-systems)

## Description

Microservices are a popular approach to building modern software, offering scalability and flexibility. But many teams face challenges such as increased complexity, difficult debugging, and managing too many small services.

In this talk, I'll introduce an alternative: Self-Contained Systems (SCS). Unlike microservices, SCS allows each part of your application to operate independently with its UI, logic, and database, simplifying both development and deployment.

You'll learn why SCS can be a better fit for many projects, how it reduces the complexity of distributed systems, and when it makes sense to use this approach over microservices. Based on my current customer project, I'll show you how to build self-contained systems with pure Java.

If you're ready to rethink your architecture and say goodbye to microservice headaches, this talk will show you the way!

## Speaker

### [Simon Martinelli](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/@simon-martinelli)

Programming Architect at Martinelli


## Related talks at this congress

- [Building Moduliths That Last: Patterns for Sustainable Module Integration](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/events/world-congress-2026-europe/sessions/1368-building-moduliths) — Christoph Kober
- [Microfrontends: Lessons Learned from Growing a Design System and Shared Libraries Across 20+ teams](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/events/world-congress-2026-europe/sessions/1160-microfrontends) — Erasmo Hernandez
- [Is it still C#? Practical systems programming with .NET (war stories included)](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/events/world-congress-2026-europe/sessions/1132-is-it-still-c) — Szymon Kulec
- [From COBOL to Java: How Developers Transition 60 Years of Legacy into Modern Java Services](https://www.wearedevelopers.com/events/world-congress-2026-europe/sessions/943-from-cobol-to-java) — Daniel Branski, Hergy Fongue, Jannis Eickenroth