[nullandvoid]

To borrow some monolith examples from Monolith to Microservices (https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/44144499 - fantastic read)

"Single Process" - Can be module based (Shopify), where multiple module's interact, but must be combined for deployment still, these module's can even extend to the DB's. Can still have multiple instances for performance

"Distributed Monolith" - This is one to fear the most, we have multiple services, yet there is still shared DB's meaning we have to deploy things together.

Both are monoliths but one is less susceptible to ball of mud. It's a sliding scale, with trade offs for each (and many variations still in between those listed).

I think it's a lack of common terminology surrounding monolith / micro-service that creates this binary illusion.