All terms

Glossary

Brownfield and greenfield

Greenfield means building on an empty site. Brownfield means building while an existing system keeps running around you.

The difference is not technology, it is constraints. On a greenfield you decide freely. On a brownfield you decide against existing data models, live contracts and users who did not order a migration.

Almost every commercially interesting project is brownfield. Greenfield mostly exists at the start of a product or in a clearly bounded niche beside it.

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