singleprocess

Singleprocess is a software design term describing an application that runs entirely within a single operating system process. In this model, all components, modules, and runtime state share one address space, and communication between parts occurs through direct function calls or in-process data structures rather than inter-process mechanisms. This term is used descriptively rather than to name a specific product.

Advantages of a singleprocess design include simplicity of deployment, straightforward state management, and reduced inter-process communication overhead. Startup time can be faster, and debugging can be easier since there is a single execution context and a unified memory space.

Disadvantages include limited fault isolation: a bug or crash in one component can bring down the entire application. Concurrency and parallelism are constrained by the single process and may be harder to scale across multiple CPU cores without introducing threads or external services. Memory usage within one process can also grow without the same isolation and protection offered by separate processes.

Typical use cases include small utilities, command-line tools, embedded or single-user applications, development prototypes, and simple web services written in event-driven or single-threaded styles. To improve resilience or scalability, developers may employ modular inside-process design with clear boundaries, or opt for a multi-process architecture where appropriate.

Although singleprocess designs are common in many ecosystems, modern software often combines the approach with targeted multi-process or multi-threaded strategies to achieve parallelism, fault tolerance, or isolation when needed.