A horizontally scalable system is one that can increase capacity by adding more computers to the system.
```mermaid
%%{init: { "flowchart": { "useMaxWidth": true } } }%%
flowchart LR
subgraph Before
A[(Computer 1)]
end
subgraph After
B[(Computer 1)]
C[(Computer 2)]
D[(Computer 3)]
end
Before --> After
```
## Horizontal Scaling Advantages
- Allows for parallel execution of workloads
- Increased fault tolerance
- Cheaper compared to [[Vertical Scaling|vertical scaling]]
## Horizontal Scaling Disadvantages
- Decreased consistency
- Joining data between nodes is more time consuming
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