The Monorepo Question

Reviewed by Greg Wilson / 2023-05-10
Keywords: Research Topics

We recently received this request from a regular reader:

The software engineers at my company have different opinions toward using a monorepo. A contingent of ex-Googlers is particularly supportive; many others have lukewarm feelings or some skepticism. Is there any empirical research to help inform this debate over the pros and cons of monorepos? Assuming there is not, how should this topic be studied? Do monorepos have more or fewer bugs, vulnerabilities, or re-work compared to the alternatives?

If anyone has answers or is interested in tackling this, please get in touch: my colleagues have been having exactly the same argument, and it feels like exactly the sort of question that an empirical study could answer.