#software-engineering > [!info] read more > https://newsletter.techworld-with-milan.com/i/135973373/evolution-of-the-netflix-api-architecture During that time, Netflix API architecture went through 4 main stages: 1. **Monolith**: A complete application is packaged as a single deployment unit. 2. **Direct Access**: This architecture enables client apps to hit the microservices, which is unsuitable for many clients. 3. **Gateway Aggregation Layer**: As they observed much duplicative data fetching, Netflix built graph API to provide unified abstraction on top of data and relationships. 4. **Federated Gateway**: As the number of consumers and the amount of data in the graph increased and the API team was disconnected from the domain expertise, they introduced a federated gateway to provide a unified API for consumers while giving backend developers flexibility and service isolation.