System Design · Junior · Question 70 of 75

How does synchronous communication between services differ from asynchronous?

✓Correct answer: Synchronous: the caller waits for the response (HTTP call); asynchronous: it sends a message and continues, the result comes later
2Synchronous is always faster
3Asynchronous means without a network

Explanation

Async messaging decouples availability and absorbs load spikes but makes flows harder to trace.

Further reading

Wikipedia: Message queue ↗

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