[DZone Research] Tools for Building Microservices

This post is taken from the Key Research Findings in the 2018 DZone Guide to Microservices: Speed, Agility, Flexibility. 

Introduction

For the 2018 DZone Guide to Microservices, we surveyed developers, architects, and technologists from across the software and IT industry. We received 682 responses with a 79% completion rate. Based on these responses, we've written a quick article on the popular tools for microservices development, management, and more.

The Microservices Tool Belt 

Given that 82% of respondents said they felt Java was one of the languages that best supports microservices, it comes as no surprise that Spring Boot (57%) and Java EE (22%) were the two most used frameworks/tools reported for building microservices. The platforms used to manage microservices once built, however, had a more even spread. 32% of those who use microservices management platforms told us they use Istio, 18% use Kong, 17% use Conduit, and 13% used Linkerd.

Looking at the data for communication protocols, three main choices emerged: HTTP (84%); Apache Kafka (25%); RabbitMQ (22%). If we compare this data to the four largest programming language ecosystems reported by respondents (Java, JavaScript, Python, and Node.js), we find that HTTP remains the first choice for communication protocols among a large majority of respondents. Here’s a breakdown of HTTP users per ecosystem: 84% Java; 86% Node.js; 85% JavaScript; 84% Python. Apache Kafka proved more popular among Python ecosystem developers than anyone else, with a 33% adoption rate. Similarly, RabbitMQ saw a 30% adoption rate among Node.js ecosystem developers, an 8% increase over the general survey population.

For the environments used to build, host, and deploy their microservices-based applications, over half of respondents (70%) use containers. Container technology factored in heavily in development, with 27% of respondents using containers only in the development stage and 35% using containers in both development and production. Among this group of survey takers doing microservice development in containerized environments, 51% use Kubernetes as their container orchestration tool. To delve deeper into the topics of containerization and container orchestration, head over to the DZone Guide to Containers: Development and Management. 

Conclusion: Are These Tools Worth the Trouble? 

Even with all these statistics, developers still appear split on the usefulness of tools and frameworks for microservices development. 60% of respondents told us they feel that tools and frameworks have provided sufficient best practices for working with microservices, with 40% feeling there is still work to be done on this front.

This post is taken from the Key Research Findings in the 2018 DZone Guide to Microservices: Speed, Agility, Flexibility.