Protobuf vs Serde

Overview

Protobuf

Stacks3.8K

Followers393

Votes0

GitHub Stars69.5K

Forks15.9K

Serde

Stacks113

Followers11

Votes0

GitHub Stars10.1K

Forks863

Protobuf vs Serde: What are the differences?

Introduction

This Markdown document provides a comparison between Protobuf and Serde, highlighting their key differences.

Serializtion and Deserialization: Protobuf is a binary serialization format, whereas Serde is a framework for serializing and deserializing Rust data structures to and from different formats, including JSON, YAML, and others. Protobuf focuses on compactness and efficiency, while Serde provides more flexibility with different formats.
Schema Definition: Protobuf requires the definition of a schema using a specialized language, typically stored in a .proto file. This schema defines the structure and data types of the serialized data. On the other hand, Serde relies on the Rust type system to infer the schema automatically, eliminating the need for explicit schema definition.
Language Support: Protobuf is not limited to any specific programming language and provides support for several languages, including Java, C++, and Python, among others. On the contrary, Serde is a Rust-specific library and primarily caters to the Rust programming language.
Backward Compatibility: Protobuf places importance on backward compatibility, allowing for the evolution of schemas while maintaining compatibility with older versions. Serde does not provide direct support for schema evolution and requires handling versioning and backward compatibility at the application level.
Advanced Features: Protobuf offers advanced features such as automatic code generation and support for RPC (Remote Procedure Call) mechanisms. Serde, on the other hand, focuses more on the foundational aspects of serialization and deserialization and does not provide out-of-the-box support for RPC.
Performance: Protobuf is known for its efficient binary encoding and decoding, resulting in compact data representations that can be transmitted quickly over a network. Serde, being more flexible and versatile, may have slightly lower performance compared to Protobuf due to the added overhead of supporting multiple serialization formats.

In Summary, Protobuf and Serde differ in their serialization approach, schema definition, language support, backward compatibility, advanced features, and performance characteristics.

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CLI (Node.js)

Manual

Detailed Comparison

Protobuf	Serde
Protocol buffers are Google's language-neutral, platform-neutral, extensible mechanism for serializing structured data – think XML, but smaller, faster, and simpler.	It is a framework for serializing and deserializing Rust data structures efficiently and generically. The ecosystem consists of data structures that know how to serialize and deserialize themselves along with data formats that know how to serialize and deserialize other things. It provides the layer by which these two groups interact with each other, allowing any supported data structure to be serialized and deserialized using any supported data format.
-	Serializing and deserializing Rust data structures; Efficient
Statistics
GitHub Stars 69.5K	GitHub Stars 10.1K
GitHub Forks 15.9K	GitHub Forks 863
Stacks 3.8K	Stacks 113
Followers 393	Followers 11
Votes 0	Votes 0
Integrations
No integrations available	Rust

What are some alternatives to Protobuf, Serde?

MessagePack

It is an efficient binary serialization format. It lets you exchange data among multiple languages like JSON. But it's faster and smaller. Small integers are encoded into a single byte, and typical short strings require only one extra byte in addition to the strings themselves.

Avro

It is a row-oriented remote procedure call and data serialization framework developed within Apache's Hadoop project. It uses JSON for defining data types and protocols, and serializes data in a compact binary format.

Apache Thrift

The Apache Thrift software framework, for scalable cross-language services development, combines a software stack with a code generation engine to build services that work efficiently and seamlessly between C++, Java, Python, PHP, Ruby, Erlang, Perl, Haskell, C#, Cocoa, JavaScript, Node.js, Smalltalk, OCaml and Delphi and other languages.

Sonic

It is a blazingly fast JSON serializing & deserializing library, accelerated by JIT (just-in-time compiling) and SIMD (single-instruction-multiple-data).

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Protobuf vs Serde: What are the differences?

Introduction

This Markdown document provides a comparison between Protobuf and Serde, highlighting their key differences.

Serializtion and Deserialization: Protobuf is a binary serialization format, whereas Serde is a framework for serializing and deserializing Rust data structures to and from different formats, including JSON, YAML, and others. Protobuf focuses on compactness and efficiency, while Serde provides more flexibility with different formats.
Schema Definition: Protobuf requires the definition of a schema using a specialized language, typically stored in a .proto file. This schema defines the structure and data types of the serialized data. On the other hand, Serde relies on the Rust type system to infer the schema automatically, eliminating the need for explicit schema definition.
Language Support: Protobuf is not limited to any specific programming language and provides support for several languages, including Java, C++, and Python, among others. On the contrary, Serde is a Rust-specific library and primarily caters to the Rust programming language.
Backward Compatibility: Protobuf places importance on backward compatibility, allowing for the evolution of schemas while maintaining compatibility with older versions. Serde does not provide direct support for schema evolution and requires handling versioning and backward compatibility at the application level.
Advanced Features: Protobuf offers advanced features such as automatic code generation and support for RPC (Remote Procedure Call) mechanisms. Serde, on the other hand, focuses more on the foundational aspects of serialization and deserialization and does not provide out-of-the-box support for RPC.
Performance: Protobuf is known for its efficient binary encoding and decoding, resulting in compact data representations that can be transmitted quickly over a network. Serde, being more flexible and versatile, may have slightly lower performance compared to Protobuf due to the added overhead of supporting multiple serialization formats.

In Summary, Protobuf and Serde differ in their serialization approach, schema definition, language support, backward compatibility, advanced features, and performance characteristics.