If this is a strain on deployment and maintenance I would take a close look at those two processes in your organization. We maintain 18+ services (5 people) and

If this is a strain on deployment and maintenance I would take a close look at those two processes in your organization. We maintain 18+ services (5 people) and having our front-end web apps call APIs only (never direct db calls) has not hit performance, deployment or maintenance issues. In fact, it's helped in all those cases, especially the last two (for us, YMMV yadda yadda).