A monolith is one deployable application with shared runtime and usually one database, simpler to build and debug but harder to scale parts independently. Microservices split the system into independently deployable services that can scale and evolve separately, but add distributed‑system complexity and operational overhead.
Expanding on the short answer — what usually matters in practice:
A tiny example (an explanation template):
// Example: discuss trade-offs for "monolith-vs-microservices?"
function explain() {
// Start from the core idea:
// Monolith: Unified codebase, easier initial dev/deploy. Microservices: Distributed, indepen
}