What is the difference between Choreography and Orchestration?

Question

Accepted Answer

Choreography and orchestration are two approaches to managing interactions in distributed systems, each with distinct characteristics.

Choreography: In this approach, each service knows how to interact with others, promoting decentralized control. For example, in a microservices architecture, a payment service might directly communicate with an inventory service to update stock levels.
Orchestration: This involves a central coordinator that manages the interactions between services, providing a single point of control. For instance, a workflow engine might orchestrate a series of services to process an order, ensuring each step is completed in the correct sequence.
Decentralization vs Centralization: Choreography emphasizes decentralized decision-making, while orchestration centralizes control, which can simplify complex workflows.
Scalability: Choreography can be more scalable as services operate independently, whereas orchestration can become a bottleneck if the central coordinator is overwhelmed.
Flexibility: Choreography allows for more flexibility in service interactions, as services can evolve independently, while orchestration may require changes to the central controller for updates.

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