The Saga Pattern: Distributed Transactions Across Microservices Without 2PC

Learn how to keep data consistent across microservices without two-phase commit using the saga pattern: choreography versus orchestration, well-designed compensating transactions (compensation is not rollback), pivot transactions, the isolation problem and its countermeasures, and how to combine sagas with the transactional outbox so no event ever gets lost. Includes a complete orchestrator in Python, choreography examples, and a production checklist.

18 minutes read

2026-07-25

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