I am starting my deep-dive into agile and had questions on how certain companies promote their releases. I need input on whether the community agrees that monthly release cycles for services is the same, in theory, as waterfall? My reasoning is that if a team bundles up several service changes/features and makes one mass monthly release then it's the same as waterfall. Wouldn't the "agile way" be to release each change/fix/feature as they are merged?
One of the agile values is responding to change over following a plan.
Note that it doesn't specify that you need to release according to a particular frequency or method. This is because Agile is an approach and is not a framework nor is it a methodology.
One organisation might be able to release monthly and still respond well to change. A lot will depend on the nature of the product and the environment. Another organisations might need to release as soon as a change/fix/feature is ready. Both organisations can still be following the Agile approach.
As an extreme example, imagine a product that is only ever used by its customers at Christmas. There is still value in releasing frequently as the this helps to reduce technical risk, but it might be considered overkill to release every time a new feature is completed.