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Engineering
8 minWhen to rebuild vs. modernize a legacy platform
ORLISSES Product Team
The instinct to start over is usually a reaction to change cost, not to code quality. Before choosing, measure how long a small change takes to reach production today.
If that number is bad because of coupling, a rebuild may not fix it — the same coupling tends to reappear in the new system.
Modernize when the domain is sound
When the underlying model of the business is right and only the delivery is painful, incremental replacement behind a stable interface is almost always faster and safer.
Rebuild when the model is wrong
When the data model contradicts how the business now works, no amount of refactoring recovers it. In that case, rebuild — but migrate one bounded area at a time, keeping both systems live.