Overview

gRPC

Stacks2.4K

Followers1.4K

Votes64

GitHub Stars43.9K

Forks11.0K

JSON-RPC

Stacks33

Followers53

Votes0

JSON-RPC vs gRPC: What are the differences?

Both JSON-RPC and gRPC are remote procedure call (RPC) protocols, but they differ in various aspects. Let's explore the key differences between JSON-RPC and gRPC.

Serialization Format: JSON-RPC uses JSON (JavaScript Object Notation) as its serialization format, which is a human-readable data interchange format. On the other hand, gRPC uses Protocol Buffers (protobuf) as its default serialization format, which is a binary format that provides a compact representation of structured data.
Transport Protocol: JSON-RPC typically relies on HTTP/HTTPS as its transport protocol, making it suitable for web-based applications. Meanwhile, gRPC offers flexibility by supporting multiple transport protocols, including HTTP/2, which provides features like multiplexing and server push, making it more efficient for high-performance and real-time communication.
Language Support: JSON-RPC has broader language support as it can be implemented in any programming language with JSON and HTTP/HTTPS capabilities. Conversely, gRPC is designed to work with Protocol Buffers, which requires code generation to create client and server stubs, making it more suited for specific languages with official support like C++, Java, Go, and more.
Service Definition: JSON-RPC does not have a standardized way to define the available methods and their input/output parameters. Hence, developers need to manually document and agree upon the API structure. In contrast, gRPC uses Protocol Buffers to define services and messages in a language-agnostic manner. This approach allows for automatic code generation, making it easier to maintain and update APIs.
Interoperability: JSON-RPC is generally more interoperable as it relies on common technologies like JSON and HTTP/HTTPS, which are widely supported across different platforms and frameworks. On the other hand, gRPC, by default, uses Protocol Buffers as its serialization format, which may require additional work to integrate with systems that do not natively support it.
Streaming Support: gRPC provides built-in support for bidirectional streaming and server-side streaming, allowing clients and servers to send multiple requests or responses over a single TCP connection. JSON-RPC, on the other hand, lacks native support for streaming and typically relies on multiple requests/responses to achieve a similar effect, which may introduce additional latency and overhead.

In summary, JSON-RPC offers broader language support and better interoperability, gRPC provides superior performance, flexibility, and streaming capabilities at the cost of narrower language support and additional complexity in service definition.

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Detailed Comparison

gRPC	JSON-RPC
gRPC is a modern open source high performance RPC framework that can run in any environment. It can efficiently connect services in and across data centers with pluggable support for load balancing, tracing, health checking...	It is a very simple protocol, defining only a few data types and commands. It allows for notifications (data sent to the server that does not require a response) and for multiple calls to be sent to the server which may be answered out of order.
Simple service definition;Works across languages and platforms;Start quickly and scale;Works across languages and platforms;Bi-directional streaming and integrated auth	-
Statistics
GitHub Stars 43.9K	GitHub Stars -
GitHub Forks 11.0K	GitHub Forks -
Stacks 2.4K	Stacks 33
Followers 1.4K	Followers 53
Votes 64	Votes 0
Pros & Cons
Pros 25 Higth performance 15 The future of API 13 Easy setup 5 Contract-based 4 Polyglot	No community feedback yet
Integrations
.NET Swift Java JavaScript C++ Kotlin	Python MQTT

What are some alternatives to gRPC, JSON-RPC?

REST

An architectural style for developing web services. A distributed system framework that uses Web protocols and technologies.

Apache Dubbo

It is a high-performance, light weight, java based RPC framework. Dubbo offers three key functionalities, which include interface based remote call, fault tolerance & load balancing, and automatic service registration & discovery.

Mercury

A modular JSON-RPC library that allows pluggable transport layers, JSON libraries, and effect/async monads. It is used to communicate with embedded devices where the device is acting in the server role.

Tars

It is an open-source microservice platform. It contains a high-performance RPC framework and a service management platform. Based on Tars, you can develop a reliable microservice system efficiently. It is designed for high reliability, high performance, and efficient service management. By significantly reducing system operation work, developers can focus on business logic and meet fast changes of user requirements.

RSocket

It is a binary protocol for use on byte stream transports such as TCP, WebSockets, and Aeron. It provides a protocol for Reactive Streams semantics between client-server, and server-server communication.

Kitex

It is a high-performance and strong-extensibility Golang RPC framework that helps developers build microservices. If performance and extensibility are the main concerns when you develop microservices, it can be a good choice.

Gravity Framework

It is a modern back-end framework with full-stack capacities written in Typescript. Its main feature is to facilitate communication in a safe way between server and client by using a remote procedure call system. It will give you the power to call a function defined in the server directly from the client - like if it's just a normal Javascript function.

FRPC

It is a proto3-compatible RPC Framework that's designed from the ground up to be lightweight, extensible, and extremely performant. On average fRPC outperforms other RPC frameworks by 2-4x in an apples-to-apples comparison, and is easily able to handle more than 2 million RPCs/second on a single server.