Microservice delivers major benefits by breaking down complex applications into its standalone features running independent applications. This brings a lot of ability to maintain easily, reduce downtime of overall application. However, microservice architecture is only helpful for large applications, as smaller applications will only increase communication time between different microservices. The decision is almost always based on the objectives you have for the application overall. Stremlined Performance vs Communication Time Gap should be evaluated and a decision should be made based on the business objectives for the same.

Your decision to move from monolithic to microservice architecture should be driven by the issues faced for maintaining and frequent downtime of the entire system due to a problem faced in a single or unrelated feature.

Microservices communicate either using REST/XML or using Sockets. For faster communication, sockets are used, however, added responsibility of security and stable socket connectivity will be crucial while dealing with socket based communication.

We have used microservice architecture for a lot of our client project in the likes of HealthTech, Logistics, Business Productivity industries etc.

Every project has its own set of complexity and thus the timeline is kept keeping in mind the team size required and the features of the project. The cost is driven by the timeline and the size of the team.