Dapr vs Micro: What are the differences?

Introduction: Dapr and Micro are both frameworks designed for building distributed systems and microservices-based architectures. While they share similarities in their focus on simplifying the development and deployment of distributed applications, there are key differences that set them apart.

1. Integration approach: Dapr is an integration framework that provides a runtime environment and a set of building blocks to easily integrate with various services and platforms. It offers a sidecar architecture, where each service is complemented by a sidecar container that handles communication and integration with other services. On the other hand, Micro takes a code-first approach and provides a framework for developing microservices from scratch, without relying on external sidecars or additional containers.

2. Programming language support: Dapr supports a wide array of programming languages, including .NET, Java, Python, Node.js, and Go. This allows developers to choose their preferred language while leveraging Dapr's capabilities. In contrast, Micro is primarily focused on Go programming language, providing a Go microservices framework and toolkit.

3. Service discovery: Dapr utilizes a central service registry and discovery mechanism. It integrates with popular service registries like Consul, etcd, and Kubernetes' service discovery. Micro, on the other hand, relies on a decentralized service discovery approach where each service is responsible for registering and discovering other services.

4. Data storage and state management: Dapr emphasizes a stateful model, offering a state management component that simplifies storing and retrieving application state. It supports various state stores, including Redis, Azure Cosmos DB, and SQL databases. In contrast, Micro does not provide a built-in state management component and instead encourages developers to choose and implement their preferred state storage solution.

5. Event-driven architecture: Dapr heavily focuses on event-driven architecture by providing a powerful eventing component. It enables event-driven communication and messaging between services, supporting popular event brokers like Kafka, RabbitMQ, and Azure Event Hubs. While Micro supports an event-driven approach as well, it does not provide a dedicated eventing component like Dapr.

In summary, Dapr provides an integration-focused framework with sidecar architecture, broader language support, centralized service discovery, built-in state management, and powerful eventing capabilities. On the other hand, Micro is a code-first Go microservices framework that emphasizes decentralized service discovery and leaves state management and event-driven aspects to be implemented by developers.