Why I Chose Go for Our Next Microservices Platform

After 20 years of primarily C# development, I've spent the last couple of years diving deep into Go. Here's why Go has become my go-to language for modern backend development and what I've learned along the way.

The Context: Moving Beyond .NET

For most of my career, C# and .NET have been my primary tools. They've served me well across healthcare, finance, and SaaS platforms. But as we started planning our next-generation microservices platform, I began questioning whether .NET was still the right choice for every use case.

The requirements were clear:

• High concurrency for handling thousands of simultaneous connections
• Fast startup times for container-based deployments
• Small memory footprint for cost-effective cloud hosting
• Simple deployment with minimal runtime dependencies
• Strong performance for real-time data processing

Why Go Made Sense

Concurrency That Actually Works

Go's goroutines and channels make concurrent programming feel natural. Coming from C#'s async/await model, I was initially skeptical. But after building a few services, I realized Go's approach is fundamentally different—and better for many use cases.

// Handling thousands of concurrent requests feels effortless
func handleRequests() {
    for i := 0; i < 10000; i++ {
        go func(id int) {
            // Each goroutine uses only ~2KB of memory
            processRequest(id)
        }(i)
    }
}

Where a C# application might struggle with thread pool exhaustion, Go handles massive concurrency with ease.

Deployment Simplicity

One of Go's biggest wins is deployment simplicity. After years of dealing with .NET Framework dependencies, GAC issues, and complex deployment scripts, Go's single binary deployment felt revolutionary.

• No runtime dependencies - just copy the binary and run
• Cross-compilation - build for Linux on my Mac without VMs
• Small container images - our Go services create 10-20MB Docker images
• Fast startup - services start in milliseconds, not seconds

Performance That Matters

The performance characteristics of Go align perfectly with cloud-native applications:

• Low memory usage - our Go services use 50-70% less memory than equivalent C# services
• Fast garbage collection - sub-millisecond GC pauses
• Excellent HTTP performance - Go's net/http package is incredibly efficient
• CPU efficiency - better resource utilization means lower cloud costs

Real-World Results

After two years of Go development, the results speak for themselves:

Conclusion

After 20 years of C# development, adopting Go felt like a risk. But it's paid off tremendously. The language's focus on simplicity, performance, and operational excellence aligns perfectly with modern software development practices.

If you're considering Go for your next project, my advice is simple: start small, embrace the Go way of doing things, and prepare to be surprised by how much you can accomplish with such a simple language.

The future of backend development is looking very Go-shaped from where I sit.