Awesome Software Architecture Books A curated list of books on, or relevant to, Software Architecture.
People in the software industry have long argued about a definition of architecture. Ralph Johnson famously defined
software architecture as "the important stuff (whatever that is)." I, subjectively, followed his definition while
deciding whether or not to include a specific book.
I thoroughly reviewed all books
tagged with software-architecture on Goodreads and picked
the best objectively—see the selection criteria below. I don't think, by any means, this list is comprehensive. Yet, I'm
planning to update it regularly to make it as comprehensive as possible.
The book must be relevant to Software Architecture; and
The content is not obsolete.
It must be technology agnostic or applicable to a wide range of technologies; and
The book profile on Goodreads matches these rules:
An average rating of 3.5 or above; and
A total number of ratings equals 50 or above.
At least 5 written reviews.
A minimum length of 50 pages.
The books are sorted solely based on the number of written reviews. There are, however, other important factors worth
considering. For example, the average rating, the number of ratings, and the publishing date. Yet, I don't have an idea
to put all these factors in a reasonable mathematical formula. If you have
any, I'd love to hear what you've got in mind.
Title
Rating
Raters
Published
Clean Architecture
4.23 3662
2017
Patterns of Enterprise Application Architecture
4.11 3501
2002
Building Evolutionary Architectures: Support Constant Change
3.74 705
2017
Fundamentals of Software Architecture: An Engineering Approach
4.40 364
2020
Software Architecture in Practice, 4th Edition
3.82 608
2021
Architecting for Scale: High Availability for Your Growing Applications
3.56 164
2016
Software Architecture for Developers: Volume 1 - Technical leadership and the balance with agility
3.87 332
2016
Software Systems Architecture: Working with Stakeholders Using Viewpoints and Perspectives
4.10 205
2005
Design It!: From Programmer to Software Architect
3.68 168
2017
The Software Architect Elevator: Transforming Enterprises with Technology and Business Architecture
4.48 101
2020
Righting Software
3.79 76
2019
Analysis Patterns: Reusable Object Models
3.80 246
1996
12 Essential Skills for Software Architects
3.70 118
2011
Software Architecture for Developers: Volume 2 - Visualise, document and explore your software architecture
3.78 108
2016
Documenting Software Architectures: Views and Beyond, 2nd Edition
3.68 174
2010
Software Architecture: Foundations, Theory, and Practice
3.75 65
2008
SOA: Principles of Service Design
3.72 130
2007
Service-Oriented Architecture: Concepts, Technology, and Design
3.65 170
2005
Title
Rating
Raters
Published
Head First Design Patterns: Building Extensible and Maintainable Object-Oriented Software
4.28 7574
2021
Design Patterns: Elements of Reusable Object-Oriented Software
4.19 10293
1994
Refactoring to Patterns
4.05 1399
2004
Dive Into Design Patterns
4.78 351
2019
Patterns Principles and Practices of Domain Driven Design
4.35 292
2015
Design Patterns Explained: A New Perspective on Object-Oriented Design, 2nd Edition
3.88 344
2004
Reactive Design Patterns
3.60 138
2014
Title
Rating
Raters
Published At
Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software
4.16 4445
2003
Domain-Driven Design Distilled
3.78 816
2016
Implementing Domain-Driven Design
4.06 934
2013
Domain-Driven Design Quickly
3.59 454
2007
Title
Rating
Raters
Published
Building Microservices: Designing Fine-Grained Systems, 2nd Edition
4.18 3792
2021
Monolith to Microservices: Sustaining Productivity While Detangling the System
4.28 389
2019
Microservice Patterns
4.15 333
2017
Production-Ready Microservices: Building Standardized Systems Across an Engineering Organization
3.81 360
2016
Reactive Microservices Architecture
3.63 186
2016
Microservice Architecture: Aligning Principles, Practices, and Culture
3.50 217
2016
The Tao of Microservices
3.95 78
2017
Microservices From Design to Deployment
3.88 80
2016
Microservices AntiPatterns and Pitfalls
3.96 82
2016
Title
Rating
Raters
Published
Designing Data-Intensive Applications
4.72 4385
2015
The Model Thinker: What You Need to Know to Make Data Work for You
3.92 493
2018
Big Data: Principles and best practices of scalable realtime data systems
3.82 440
2015
Beautiful Data: The Stories Behind Elegant Data Solutions
3.65 258
2009
Data Modeling Made Simple: A Practical Guide for Business and It Professionals, 2nd Edition
3.76 74
2015
Title
Rating
Raters
Published
Enterprise Integration Patterns: Designing, Building, and Deploying Messaging Solutions
4.10 1388
2003
Making Sense of Stream Processing
4.31 143
2016
Streaming Systems
3.92 106
2018
Designing Event-Driven Systems
3.80 190
2018
Title
Rating
Raters
Published
Designing Distributed Systems: Patterns and Paradigms for Scalable, Reliable Services
3.58 453
2018
Distributed Systems For Fun and Profit
4.19 326
2013
Security Engineering: A Guide to Building Dependable Distributed Systems, 3rd Edition
4.19 622
2020
Database Internals: A Deep Dive into How Distributed Data Systems Work
4.26 178
2019
Distributed Systems: Principles and Paradigms, 2nd Edition
3.99 357
2016
Title
Rating
Raters
Published
Infrastructure as Code: Managing Servers in the Cloud
4.20 316
2016
Cloud Native Infrastructure: Patterns for Scalable Infrastructure and Applications in a Dynamic Environment
3.57 130
2017
Cloud Native Patterns: Designing change-tolerant software
4.24 76
2019
The Practice of Cloud System Administration: Devops and SRE Practices for Web Services, Volume 2
4.38 247
2014
Beyond the Twelve-Factor App Exploring the DNA of Highly Scalable, Resilient Cloud Applications
3.54 91
2016
Kubernetes Patterns: Reusable Elements for Designing Cloud-Native Applications
4.27 101
2019
Cloud Design Patterns: Prescriptive Architecture Guidance for Cloud Applications
4.23 66
2014
Cloud Computing: Concepts, Technology & Architecture
3.78 137
2013
Title
Rating
Raters
Published
The Art of Scalability: Scalable Web Architecture, Processes, and Organizations for the Modern Enterprise, 2nd Edition
4.00 307
2015
Web Scalability for Startup Engineers
4.58 160
2015
Building Scalable Web Sites
3.73 299
2006
Scalable Internet Architectures
3.67 168
2006
Scalability Rules: 50 Principles for Scaling Web Sites
3.97 236
2011
The Art of Capacity Planning: Scaling Web Resources
3.75 212
2008
Title
Rating
Raters
Published At
Clean Agile: Back to Basics
4.30 633
2019
Agile Software Development: Principles, Patterns, and Practices
4.25 1201
2002
The Art of Agile Development
3.96 828
2007
Agile Software Development
3.98 390
2001
Planning Extreme Programming
3.91 363
2000
Scaling Software Agility: Best Practices for Large Enterprises
3.65 168
2007
Balancing Agility and Discipline: A Guide for the Perplexed
3.59 105
2003
Title
Rating
Raters
Published
The DevOps Handbook: How to Create World-Class Agility, Reliability, and Security in Technology Organizations
4.33 3647
2016
Continuous Delivery: Reliable Software Releases Through Build, Test, and Deployment Automation
4.18 2969
2010
Continuous Integration: Improving Software Quality and Reducing Risk
3.81 431
2007
Devops: A Software Architect's Perspective
3.63 57
2015
Title
Rating
Raters
Published
The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering
4.03 12295
1995
The Unicorn Project
4.13 4927
2019
Release It!: Design and Deploy Production-Ready Software
4.26 2746
2007
A Philosophy of Software Design
4.14 1516
2018
Site Reliability Engineering: How Google Runs Production Systems
4.23 1980
2016
The Software Craftsman: Professionalism, Pragmatism, Pride
4.33 769
2014
Code Simplicity: The Fundamentals of Software
3.74 501
2012
High Performance Browser Networking
4.50 671
2013
97 Things Every Software Architect Should Know: Collective Wisdom from the Experts
3.62 686
2009
High Performance Web Sites
4.15 690
2007
Software Estimation: Demystifying the Black Art
4.04 911
2006
The Design of Design: Essays from a Computer Scientist
3.76 571
2010
Software Requirements: Practical Techniques for Gathering and Managing Requirements Throughout the Product Development Cycle, 3rd Edition
4.10 713
2016
Waltzing with Bears: Managing Risk on Software Projects
3.97 702
2003
Software Engineering at Google: Lessons Learned from Programming Over Time
4.19 344
2020
Ship It!: A Practical Guide to Successful Software Projects
3.72 509
2005
The Leprechauns of Software Engineering
3.84 147
2012
Software Design X-Rays: Fix Technical Debt with Behavioral Code Analysis
4.20 112
2018
The Site Reliability Workbook: Practical Ways to Implement SRE
4.34 231
2018
Beyond Software Architecture: Creating and Sustaining Winning Solutions
3.72 141
2003
37 Things One Architect Knows
4.35 100
2016
Presentation Patterns: Techniques for Crafting Better Presentations
3.94 123
2012
Chaos Engineering
4.23 112
2017
Container Security: Fundamental Technology Concepts That Protect Containerized Applications
4.48 52
2020
Composing Software
3.88 85
2018
Software Security: Building Security in
3.63 82
2006
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