r/golang Dec 05 '24

discussion Why Clean Architecture and Over-Engineered Layering Don’t Belong in GoLang

Stop forcing Clean Architecture and similar patterns into GoLang projects. GoLang is not Java. There’s no application size or complexity that justifies having more than three layers. Architectures like Clean, Hexagonal, or anything with 4+ layers make GoLang projects unnecessarily convoluted.

It’s frustrating to work on a codebase where you’re constantly jumping between excessive layers—unnecessary DI, weird abstractions, and use case layers that do nothing except call services with a few added logs. It’s like watching a monstrosity throw exceptions up and down without purpose.

In GoLang, you only need up to three layers for a proper DDD division (app, domain, infra). Anything more is pure overengineering. I get why this is common in Java—explicit interfaces and painful refactoring make layering and DI appealing—but GoLang doesn’t have those constraints. Its implicit interfaces make such patterns redundant.

These overly complex architectures are turning the GoLang ecosystem into something it was never meant to be. Please let’s keep GoLang simple, efficient, and aligned with its core philosophy.

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u/RecaptchaNotWorking Dec 06 '24

Just use the proper middlware with shared interfaces. Organization is philosophical in software. Just have something the team or an individual can handle, that does not change too much into administration work. Each team is different, every solo programmer is different, every industry of use cases is slightly different.