Open-source alternatives to Thrift

Protocol Buffers is a binary serialization framework used to encode structured information into compact payloads to reduce network bandwidth and storage. It functions as a cross-language data interchange standard that enables different platforms and languages to exchange structured data using a shared schema. The project includes an interface definition language compiler that transforms schema definitions into type-safe source code for multiple target programming languages. This mechanism decouples data structures from specific language memory layouts and ensures consistent data handling acro

CapnProto is a zero-copy serialization framework and remote procedure call system. It serves as a C++ communication library providing a schema-based data interchange format that eliminates the need to encode or decode data before reading it from memory. The system enables high-performance data serialization and low-latency network communication. It supports cross-language data exchange by using a defined schema to ensure consistent binary representation across different platforms. The framework provides tools for implementing remote procedure calls, allowing functions to be invoked on a remo

Fury is a multi-language binary serialization framework designed for encoding domain objects and complex graphs to facilitate cross-language data exchange. It includes an interface definition language compiler that translates schema definitions into idiomatic native types and serialization boilerplate across multiple languages. The project distinguishes itself through a zero-copy binary reader that allows specific fields to be accessed without deserializing the entire object, as well as an object graph serializer that preserves circular references and referential integrity. It also features a

This project is a Protocol Buffers implementation for Go, providing a binary serialization framework to convert native data structures into a compact binary format for efficient network transmission and storage. It functions as a language bindings generator, utilizing a compiler plugin to create Go source code from platform-neutral protocol buffer definitions. The implementation includes a JSON data mapper that transforms structured binary messages into JSON format to facilitate compatibility with web services and external APIs. It also enables cross-language data exchange by using a common s

FlatBuffers is a cross-platform serialization library designed for performance-critical applications that require efficient, zero-copy data access. By organizing data in a structured binary format, it allows applications to read and write complex data structures directly from memory-mapped buffers without the need for intermediate parsing or temporary object allocation. The project distinguishes itself through a schema-driven approach that balances high-performance access with long-term data evolution. It utilizes a unique memory layout featuring relative offsets and inline fixed-size structu

rpcx is a high-performance remote procedure call framework for building scalable microservices in Go. It functions as a binary protocol RPC system and a service mesh, providing the necessary infrastructure for low-latency inter-service communication and distributed cloud environments. The project features a cross-language service gateway that provides an HTTP entry point, allowing clients written in any programming language to invoke Go remote services via protocol translation. It also includes a specialized RPC traffic analyzer for capturing and analyzing binary packets to debug network comm

Apache Dubbo Go is a Go language implementation of the Apache Dubbo framework designed for building high-performance microservices. It serves as a cross-language RPC framework and microservices communication layer that enables remote procedure calls between services written in different programming languages. The framework functions as a service governance toolset and a distributed service mesh proxy, allowing data planes to connect with external control planes in proxy or proxyless modes. It specifically provides a compatibility layer to facilitate communication between Go and Java-based ser

This is a remote procedure call framework built on Netty for asynchronous communication between distributed services. It provides the infrastructure necessary to execute remote procedure calls across a network, allowing clients and servers to interact without blocking. The framework utilizes Zookeeper for service registration and dynamic discovery, ensuring that service providers can be located automatically at runtime. It includes a service versioning manager to organize and track different iterations of service interfaces, enabling side-by-side deployments of multiple versions. The system

MagicOnion is a .NET RPC framework used to build type-safe remote procedure call services using shared interfaces for communication between servers and clients. It functions as a binary serialization framework and a distributed service orchestrator, providing a network layer for low-latency streaming and real-time data exchange. The project distinguishes itself through an AOT-compatible network client that uses source generators to support ahead-of-time compilation in restricted runtime environments. It enables bidirectional communication and real-time data streaming, allowing servers and mul

go-plugin is a framework for implementing plugin architectures where extensions run as separate processes and communicate via a Go RPC plugin system. It functions as an inter-process communication library and lifecycle manager that allows host applications to discover, launch, and monitor external binary plugins. The framework enables cross-language plugin systems, allowing plugins written in different languages to integrate with a host through standardized RPC protocols. It features a bidirectional RPC bridge that allows both the host and the plugin to exchange interface implementations for

Transit is a language-agnostic data interchange format designed for serializing complex data structures between heterogeneous software systems. It provides a standardized protocol that preserves semantic type information during the exchange process, ensuring that data remains consistent when moved across different programming environments. The format distinguishes itself by supporting multiple transport layers, including JSON and MessagePack, while utilizing a caching stream mechanism to reduce payload size by replacing repetitive keys and symbols with short integer references. It features an

Cellnet is a Go networking framework designed for building distributed systems and peer-to-peer networks. It provides a multi-protocol transport layer that standardizes message exchange across TCP, UDP, and WebSockets, utilizing a binary message codec system to map message types to unique identifiers for network transmission. The framework is distinguished by its remote procedure call library, which enables the execution of functions on remote peers using synchronous or asynchronous request patterns. It further differentiates itself with an asynchronous event dispatcher that processes network

Extensible Data Notation is a language-agnostic text format designed for the reliable exchange of structured data and immutable values across diverse programming environments and distributed systems. It provides a standardized way to organize information into hierarchies using collections such as maps, sets, and vectors, ensuring consistent data recognition through the use of symbolic identifiers and keywords. The format distinguishes itself through its support for extensible tagged elements, which allow developers to register custom handlers to interpret domain-specific data structures beyon

Fory is a cross-language serialization framework and binary data serializer designed to convert complex object graphs into a compact binary format for high-performance data exchange. It includes an IDL-based schema compiler to transform interface definition language files into type-safe native data models and a schema evolution manager to maintain forward and backward compatibility. The project features a zero-copy data access layer that allows reading specific fields from binary rows without deserializing the entire object. It supports dual-mode serialization, enabling a toggle between a por

Toon is a data serialization library and toolkit designed to convert complex objects into compact, human-readable formats optimized for large language models. By focusing on token efficiency, the library minimizes the context window footprint of structured data through techniques like key folding and tabular layout optimization. It provides a streaming-capable processor that handles the encoding and decoding of hierarchical data while maintaining structural integrity. The project distinguishes itself through its path-aware transformation pipeline and configurable serialization logic, which al

s2client-proto provides a set of structured data definitions and language-neutral communication protocols used to exchange information between an external client and the StarCraft II engine. It utilizes protocol buffer definitions to establish a binary serialization schema for these data exchanges. The project defines the underlying communication layer necessary for game engine automation, game state analysis, and the development of software agents for competitive gaming. The framework covers interface definition languages to ensure compatibility across programming languages and employs sche

Ribbon is a client-side load balancer and RPC communication library designed for inter-process communication. It functions as a fault-tolerant network proxy that distributes outgoing network requests across a pool of available server instances to prevent node overload. The project integrates as a service discovery client, maintaining synchronized lists of available server instances by connecting with cloud environment discovery tools. This allows it to manage request retries and failover behavior when remote servers become unresponsive. The library supports a protocol-agnostic transport laye

Highly scalable realtime pub/sub and RPC framework

tarpc is a remote procedure call framework for Rust that generates server traits and client stubs for network communication. It provides an asynchronous service interface that allows remote functions to be called as if they were local asynchronous tasks. The framework utilizes a serialized transport layer to move request and response data via TCP sockets, Unix domain sockets, or in-process channels. It includes a request lifecycle interceptor for injecting custom logic to handle authorization, throttling, and load balancing, as well as a distributed request telemetry system that attaches dead

This project is an open-source software development kit and framework for implementing the Matter smart home standard. It provides a universal IPv6-based application layer and a cluster-based data model to ensure interoperability between diverse smart home devices and controllers. The system is distinguished by its multi-transport network abstraction, which maps Bluetooth LE, Thread, and Wi-Fi implementations to a common layer. It includes specialized tooling for secure device commissioning via QR codes and NFC, as well as a comprehensive over-the-air firmware update system for distributing s

grpc-go is a Go language implementation of the gRPC framework, providing a remote procedure call library for high-performance service communication. It uses the HTTP/2 protocol to execute functions on remote servers as if they were local methods and utilizes protobuf service bindings to generate type-safe client and server code. The project features a bidirectional streaming transport that supports asynchronous, full-duplex message streams between clients and servers. This networking layer allows for various communication patterns, including client-to-server and server-to-client streaming, to

This project is a self-hosted, cross-platform instant messaging platform featuring a Go backend and a protobuf-based messaging server. It provides a unified communication suite with native clients for iOS, Android, and web, utilizing gRPC and Protocol Buffers for efficient data exchange. The system is distinguished by an extensible chatbot framework that allows for the integration of automated bots and plugins via standardized service interfaces. It supports high-availability clustering with sharded load distribution and a pluggable database backend to ensure reliability and flexible data per

Nameko is a Python microservices framework designed for building distributed systems using a service-oriented architecture. It provides a system for implementing remote procedure calls and asynchronous event broadcasting between decoupled services by utilizing the AMQP protocol and message brokers. The framework includes a managed HTTP client pool to fetch remote content while preventing resource exhaustion. It also functions as a microservice web gateway, allowing internal service logic to be exposed as external web endpoints via standard HTTP protocols. The project covers broad capabilitie

protobuf.js is a JavaScript and TypeScript library for encoding and decoding structured data using the Protocol Buffers binary format. It functions as a dynamic parser that can load and process schemas at runtime, a JSON transcoder for converting messages to human-readable formats, and a framework for building transport-agnostic remote procedure call clients. The project distinguishes itself by offering both dynamic message handling and a static code generator that produces TypeScript declarations and JavaScript modules to reduce runtime overhead. It also provides a reflection API for definin

This project is a comprehensive performance programming guide and reference for the Go language, focusing on runtime efficiency and memory optimization. It provides a collection of patterns and techniques designed to increase execution speed by reducing garbage collection overhead and optimizing memory usage. The resource distinguishes itself through detailed reference implementations for memory optimization, such as escape analysis, object pooling, and structure memory alignment. It offers specific strategies for reducing binary size and improving CPU cache efficiency through structure memor

This library provides a framework for implementing gRPC clients and services in Rust, enabling reliable communication between distributed system components. It facilitates the definition and hosting of asynchronous unary and streaming network services, utilizing protocol buffers to ensure consistent, strongly-typed data exchange. The project distinguishes itself by integrating with a high-performance C core via foreign function interfaces to handle low-level networking and protocol logic. It employs a task-based concurrency model to coordinate non-blocking operations and utilizes zero-copy me

Arrow is a cross-language development platform for in-memory data. It provides a standardized, language-independent columnar memory format designed to accelerate analytical operations and improve memory efficiency on modern computing hardware. By utilizing a schema-driven approach, the framework enables the efficient organization of both flat and nested data structures. The project functions as an analytical data processing engine that facilitates high-performance computation directly on memory-resident datasets. It distinguishes itself through a zero-copy architecture, which allows multiple