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CHICAGO — We head to the Windy City this week to get the scoop on MACH — or the approach to managing digital technology stacks through microservices, APIs, cloud-native, headless and composable architectures and philosophies.
The nonprofit MACH Alliance, established in 2020, champions this approach and has more than 100 “MACH-certified” members composed mostly of vendors and systems integrators. It hosts The Composable Conference this week at the Convene Willis Tower.
Good timing. Lots to discuss around MACH and composable strategies, such as:
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The intersection of artificial intelligence and MACH (more on this in a future article)
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Working with “monolithic” technologies vs. best of breed
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The realities of composable technology stacks
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And, most notably in recent social media circles: is MACH a once romanticized notion whose heyday is long gone?
The latter point? This LinkedIn post by former MACH Alliance member and digital commerce provider VTEX through the lens of its co-CEO, Mariano Gomide de Faria. More than 1,000 engagements, nearly 100 comments and 29 reposts. For us in B2B tech circles, that's viral.
Table of Contents
- The MACH Dialogue: Fire, Facts and a Familiar Fight
- In Opposition to MACH: Why Composability Needs a Reality Check
- In Defense of MACH: It’s Not Dogma, It’s Discipline
- MACH vs. Pragmatic Composability: Comparing the Debate
- Monoliths vs. Best of Breed: The Heart of Composable
- Composable DXPs Gain Ground, But Orchestration Still a Struggle
- It’s Not MACH vs. Monolith—It’s What Works
- Finding the Sweet Spot in the Composable Spectrum
The MACH Dialogue: Fire, Facts and a Familiar Fight
So let’s start there. Gomide de Faria didn't hold back on the MACH Alliance, saying, “Its vision of modular commerce—stitching together 'best-of-breed' solutions—appeared revolutionary at first glance (and it has been for some). But what began as a technical liberation movement has instead led us down a treacherous path paved with hidden costs, operational nightmares, unfulfilled promises, and financial ruin.”
Gomide de Faria provided no evidence of "financial ruin." And let's establish this: any dissenting post from a “former” member of anything has the likelihood of some inside baseball stuff we’ll never know. The MACH Alliance in 2024 had a total income of $5 million, mostly in membership fees, it reported in its annual report. Money matters, and VTEX is a former Alliance member.
We're not saying this is about money. We’re giving this particular gripe with MACH some daylight because of the healthy debate it ignited. It's a dialogue that digital customer experience practitioners, senior marketing technologists and anyone managing digital stacks should follow — and at the core is the age-old suite vs. best-of-breed debate.
Related Article: Is MACH Architecture at an Inflection Point for Digital Experiences?
In Opposition to MACH: Why Composability Needs a Reality Check
Here’s the gist of Gomide de Faria’s argument: He argues that the pure, best-of-breed MACH (Microservices, API-first, Cloud-native, Headless) approach has failed to live up to its promise. While MACH started as a movement to liberate companies from rigid monoliths, it has led to:
- Integration chaos: Companies now struggle with complex webs of APIs, data inconsistencies and fragile systems.
- Skyrocketing costs: Managing multiple vendors, licenses and support contracts has become financially burdensome.
- Operational overload: Business users face fragmented tools and workflows, leading to inefficiency and poor time-to-market.
- Security risks: Data is unnecessarily duplicated and spread across vendors, creating compliance and privacy challenges.
The key argument against MACH: MACH has become dogmatic, and the industry must move toward pragmatic composability — solutions that balance modularity with simplicity, connected ecosystems and measurable business outcomes.
He proposes MACH principles are now “table stakes” and that the future should emphasize:
- Pragmatism over purity
- Out-of-the-box (OOTB) connectivity
- Reduction of silos and data duplication
- Clear ROI
"Perhaps most devastating is the operational burden placed on business users who must navigate a labyrinth of disconnected tools and interfaces," Gomide de Faria wrote. "For the largest organizations, millions of dollars are spent constructing custom business user experiences and integrated workflows across their ecosystem of commerce apps. For everyone else, digital marketers waste precious time switching between systems, merchandisers struggle to maintain consistent product experiences, and content teams battle fragmented workflows that kill productivity."
Fully best-of-breed MACH architectures often create complexity and fragmentation that hurt business agility, delay innovation and raise operational costs, he added. Disconnected systems lead to data silos, which hinder AI adoption and personalized experiences.
On the security front, data replication across multiple vendors increases exposure and complicates compliance. Because composable stacks require significant effort to standardize and secure, they often fail to deliver on the promise of simplicity. Instead, organizations need a future-proof, connected tech backbone that reduces integration burden and prioritizes security, privacy and out-of-the-box interoperability, according to Gomide de Faria.
In Defense of MACH: It’s Not Dogma, It’s Discipline
MACH Alliance President Casper Aagaard Rasmussen welcomed the debate in the post and weighed in: “We exist to serve the brand and the end user of the enterprise; our principles, the commitment to interoperability, along with new hybrid philosophies and the evolution of our criteria shows we've evolving rapidly, to match the needs of the market. An example is also our commitment to mindset of MACH, which anchors success in i.e. pragmatism, incremental execution and value management.”
Rasmussen added in this post, "MACH isn’t a rigid framework, nor is it an outright rejection of traditional architectures. At its core, it is a set of guiding principles — an architectural approach that prioritises flexibility, scalability and innovation when applied strategically to the right scenarios.”
Here's the gist of what MACH supporters said in the LinkedIn post:
- Sound principles: Many commenters argue that MACH's architectural vision remains valid — problems arise from immature execution or overzealous interpretation.
- Evolution, not abandonment: Some say MACH Alliance should evolve rather than be discarded.
- Balance over extremes: Hybrid approaches (mix of monolith and MACH) are often the most practical.
- MACH made an impact: It's credited with breaking monolithic mindsets and modernizing enterprise tech conversations.
- Execution, not architecture, is the issue: Supporters argue that poor outcomes stem from flawed implementations and partner misguidance—not from MACH principles themselves. As one commenter put it, MACH isn't broken; it's an art rather than a science that requires skilled hands.
- MACH is a mindset, not a product: Practitioners emphasized that MACH is a set of guiding principles — not a vendor solution or rigid framework. The Alliance simply advocates for those principles, which many believe are still critical to modern architecture.
- Success stories do exist: While not every implementation has delivered ROI, others have seen high quality solutions at pace and improved business agility when MACH was applied with governance and strategy.
The key argument for MACH: MACH is evolving: it's shifting toward more pragmatic, outcome-driven messaging and expanding criteria to address concerns — suggesting the movement is adapting, not dissolving.
Related Article: Composable Architecture: Building Your Roadmap to Success
MACH vs. Pragmatic Composability: Comparing the Debate
This table summarizes the key perspectives from both critics and defenders of MACH architecture, drawn from real-world observations and social media commentary and beyond.
| Category | Criticism of MACH | Defense of MACH |
|---|---|---|
| Architecture | Too complex and fragmented; results in tangled integration webs and duplicated data. | Not dogma but discipline; MACH is a set of guiding principles, not a rigid system. |
| Cost | Skyrocketing expenses from managing multiple vendors, licenses and support. | Cost varies with execution; organizations that start small and scale incrementally see ROI. |
| Operations | Burden on business users; fragmented workflows and poor time-to-market. | Execution is the issue, not MACH; skilled orchestration resolves operational friction. |
| Security & Compliance | Increased security risks due to redundant data across multiple vendors. | A strong MACH foundation can enforce standardization and modern security practices. |
| Mindset | MACH has become dogmatic and disconnected from real business needs. | MACH is a mindset, not a product; its evolution includes hybrid and pragmatic approaches. |
| Industry Role | Initial hype created unrealistic expectations; composable often fails to deliver value. | MACH moved the industry forward; broke monolithic mindsets and encouraged flexibility. |
| Path Forward | Move to pragmatic composability with fewer silos, better UX and clear ROI. | Refine MACH principles with expanded criteria, real-world governance and hybrid solutions. |
Monoliths vs. Best of Breed: The Heart of Composable
Whatever "side" you are on here, you can't debate this sparked valuable discourse: Even critics acknowledged MACH's role in pushing the industry to rethink flexibility, interoperability and modularity in enterprise architecture.
At the heart of this debate is how organizations compose their digital technology stacks. And at the heart of that is whether you rely on best-of-breed practices (lots of vendors stitched together) or a suite vendor (all-in-one that manages most of the marketing/whichever technology stacks you deploy).
Composable Is Getting Real With DXPs
And at the heart of this seems to be composable architectures. In our CMSWire Digital Experience Platforms Market Guide, we noted that in the past three years one of the main themes in the industry has been greater support from DXP vendors for composable as well as headless architectures. At this point, more or less every solution provider in the CMSWire guide has emphasized their ability to support composable and headless architectures.
While the classic DXP was an existing integrated, monolithic environment consisting of both back office and presentation tiers, increasingly the idea of the composable DXP — a more modular, integrated ecosystem of services that work together cohesively — is coming into play.
“When teams design with composability in mind, they focus on the essential customer value each component delivers,” MACH Alliance’s Rasmussen said in a Q&A with CMSWire. “This clarity — combined with the ability to act on insights quickly — creates a foundation for better experiences.”
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Composable DXPs Gain Ground, But Orchestration Still a Struggle
Eric Feige, managing director of strategy at MACH Alliance member V-Shift, noted Gartner’s latest DXP report projects that “By 2026, at least 70% of organizations will be mandated to acquire composable digital experience platform technology, as opposed to monolithic suites, compared to 50% in 2023."
“40% growth in three years — I call that progress,” Feige, a CMSWire Contributor, said.
Organizations, he added, are definitely warming up to composable digital experience technologies. "They're finding ways for tools like headless content management systems to integrate smoothly with older legacy systems," Feige added, "which usually can't just be turned off overnight."
We noted last year composable isn’t a set it and forget it, either. Have companies started to close that orchestration gap?
“Honestly, not really,” Feige said. “With traditional monolithic platforms, you have an 'all-in-one' vendor who brings along their certified consultants, making everything straightforward—and pricey. Composable systems require orchestration: You have to assemble a mix of technologies that help you meet your specific goals, say, faster go-to-market, more control for business users and lower tech costs. Orchestration makes this possible, but many people still prefer relying on an all-in-one vendor rather than embracing the freedom — and accountability — of a multi-vendor approach.”
Related Article: Navigate Turbulence With Composability and Modular Martech
It’s Not MACH vs. Monolith—It’s What Works
Andrew Kumar, VP of customer solutions at MACH Alliance member Uniform, said customers are adopting a pragmatic approach to composability, embracing it where flexibility and scalability are critical while consolidating where simplicity and cost-efficiency are priorities.
“Organizations that previously experimented with composable architectures are now scaling their implementations across multiple teams and digital touchpoints,” Kumar added.
Kumar emphasizes that the core problem with MACH adoption isn’t the architecture itself — it’s how businesses misunderstand or misapply it. He argues that CX and marketing leaders often misjudge vendor claims, assume MACH is too complex or requires a full platform overhaul and overlook its real value beyond just speed.
Rather than chasing MACH as a buzzword, he urges teams to prioritize interoperability, marketer enablement and realistic proof-of-concepts. He also believes the MACH vs. SOA (Service-Oriented Architecture) debate is mostly outdated—the industry has moved on to practical challenges like AI integration, incremental modernization and how to scale composable architectures in a way that delivers real business value.
“While composable systems can initially seem daunting, the modular nature of MACH allows businesses to start small and scale incrementally,” Kumar said. “Some leaders believe transitioning to MACH requires a complete platform redo. Composability supports incremental modernization, enabling organizations to integrate new components without abandoning legacy systems.”
Finding the Sweet Spot in the Composable Spectrum
Perhaps summarizing the debate best, Christopher Bousquet, commerce practice lead at DefinedLogic, said in the VTEX LinkedIn post that MACH’s principles are sound, but executing composable architecture well requires skilled strategists who can balance pricing, cost, vendor management and features.
Ultimately, composability isn’t binary—it’s a spectrum, and success depends on finding the right mix for each organization. Like music, crafting a great composable solution is more art than science, he added.
“Ultimately, crafting a composable solution is an art rather than a science. Getting it right takes experience, diligence, & creativity,” Bousquet wrote. “I don't see composable as "binary." It's a spectrum & folks need to figure out where the sweet spot is for their specific needs.”
