Micro-Frontends in the trenches

Manfred Steyer, Angular trainer, consultant and creator of Native Federation, shares his experience with micro-frontends. He compares hyperlink, hydration and federation approaches. He covers state sharing with signals and subjects, handling multiple Angular versions, and why he built a bundler-agnostic Native Federation using import maps and ES modules.

Chris Fryer, director and front-end practitioner with 20+ years and creator of the Dream micro-frontends framework. He discusses Module Federation’s runtime composition, Dream’s starter kits and orchestration layer (ROS), and real-world approaches to cross-remote authentication, traffic management, and gradual rollouts. The conversation stays practical, focused on tools, architecture and adoption paths.

Boris Besemer, Senior Platform Architect at Vercel who helps teams migrate to micro-frontends and improve developer workflows. He discusses avoiding big-bang rewrites and using the strangler pattern for incremental modernization. Conversation covers picking low-risk starting pages, routing and deployment strategies, remote components to reduce jank, preview environments, feature-flag integrations, and platform tooling to speed migrations.

In a lively discussion with Sam Newman, an expert in distributed systems and author of Building Microservices, listeners dive into the world of micro-frontends. Sam clarifies the origins of the term and contrasts components with micro-frontends, emphasizing their encapsulation. He explores why micro-frontends pose fewer risks and discusses the importance of team autonomy in architecture. The conversation also touches on the role of APIs, the significance of context in architectural choices, and the future of simpler operations with WebAssembly. Sam's insights make this a must-listen!

In this episode of Micro-Frontends in the Trenches, I talk with Jeremy Colin (ex-Zalando) about the journey that led to Tailor.js and later Mosaic, two pioneering frameworks that shaped how micro-frontends are built at scale.Jeremy shares the technical challenges, trade-offs, and lessons learned while building these platforms, and why platform engineering is essential for making micro-frontends practical in real-world organizations.We dive into:- The story behind Tailor.js and its role in Zalando’s architecture.- How Mosaic evolved and why it mattered.- The hidden complexities of adopting micro-frontends.- Why platform engineering is key to simplifying and sustaining the practice.I highly encourage all of you to listen to this episode that is part of the micro-frontend history!

We’ve been cooking something new—Remote Components.Imagine pushing a tiny change to your e-commerce site like updating a free shipping banner and having to wait hours for the entire site to build and test. That’s the reality of traditional monolithic frontends, where even the smallest updates can ripple across the codebase, slowing teams down and widening the blast radius for potential problems.Vercel is changing the game with micro-frontends providing an unmatched developer experience so farIn this episode you’ll learn how Vercel micro-frontends implementation can:- Speed up build and deploy times- Reduce risks when releasing features- Empower teams to ship independently without stepping on each other’s toesMore information at: https://vercel.com/microfrontends

Zack Jackson, an infrastructure architect at ByteDance and the mastermind behind Module Federation, delves into the evolution and impact of this revolutionary technology. He shares fascinating insights into the newly launched Module Federation 2.0, including support for multiple bundlers. Discussions also highlight its innovative applications in industries like electric vehicles and gaming. Zack candidly addresses challenges in maintaining the Next.js plugin and reveals his ambitious plans for the future, promising even more evolution in the module-loading landscape.

In this engaging conversation, Julia Machado, the founder of WebCrumbs.org, shares her journey and the inspiration behind WebCrumbs, a platform designed to make micro-frontends more accessible for developers, especially those working on smaller-scale applications. Julia discusses the innovative components of WebCrumbs and highlights the advantages of adopting micro-frontends in various projects. She introduces the concept of a "global micro-frontend platform" and its potential to transform collaboration among developers across different companies. Additionally, Julia addresses comparisons between WebCrumbs and Vercel v0, shedding light on how both platforms are evolving in response to growing expectations in the tech landscape. Tune in to hear Julia's vision for the future of collaborative development using micro-frontends and discover how WebCrumbs is paving the way for a more inclusive approach to web development. Links from the episode: - WebCrumbs - I Found a Tool Even Better than v0

In this episode of "Micro-Frontends in the Trenches," we speak with Zack, co-founder of Zephyr Cloud, about how their platform is changing the landscape of micro-frontend deployment. Zack shares insights into how Zephyr Cloud operates, allowing developers to deploy updates in seconds instead of minutes or more. This rapid deployment to the edge enhances the feedback loop, enabling teams to iterate on their code more efficiently. Zack also discusses the platform's flexibility, which supports various frameworks and cloud providers without locking teams into a specific technology stack. With minimal setup required—just 1 line of code to get started—Zephyr Cloud aims to simplify deployment processes and allow developers to concentrate on coding. This episode offers practical insights for those involved with micro-frontends or looking to enhance their deployment strategies. Zephyr Cloud presents a thoughtful approach to improving how modern web applications are built and deployed. Zephyr Cloud: https://www.zephyr-cloud.io

In this special episode, we’re thrilled to welcome a superstar guest—Malte Ubl, the CTO of Vercel! Vercel has been making waves in the web development world, and today, Malte gives us an insider’s perspective on how they’re approaching micro-frontends and what this means for developers like you. Join us as we chat with Malte about Vercel’s vision for micro-frontends and the innovative architecture they’re building to support them. We dig into the pivotal role React Server Components are playing in this strategy and how these components are set to change the game for performance and scalability on the web. Malte also shares some exciting updates on when we might start seeing micro-frontends integrated into Vercel and Next.js, offering a glimpse into the future of web development with these cutting-edge tools.