Description
Official Google Protocol Buffer Repo
Protocol Buffers alternatives and similar packages
Based on the "Serialization" category.
Alternatively, view Protobuf alternatives based on common mentions on social networks and blogs.
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MessagePack for C# (.NET, .NET Core, Unity, Xamarin)
Extremely Fast MessagePack Serializer for C#(.NET, .NET Core, Unity, Xamarin). / msgpack.org[C#] -
Bond
DISCONTINUED. Bond was a cross-platform framework for working with schematized data. The open-source project ended on March 31, 2025. -
Utf8Json
DISCONTINUED. Definitely Fastest and Zero Allocation JSON Serializer for C#(NET, .NET Core, Unity, Xamarin). -
Magicodes.IE
Import and export general library, support Dto import and export, template export, fancy export and dynamic export, support Excel, Csv, Word, Pdf and Html. -
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FileHelpers
The FileHelpers are a free and easy to use .NET library to read/write data from fixed length or delimited records in files, strings or streams -
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ObjectDumper.NET
ObjectDumper is a utility which aims to serialize C# objects to string for debugging and logging purposes. -
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Bois
Salar.Bois is a compact, fast and powerful binary serializer for .NET Framework. With Bois you can serialize your existing objects with almost no change. -
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Utf8JsonAsyncStreamReader
An Asynchronous forward-only streaming JSON parser and deserializer based on System.Text.Json.Utf8JsonReader. -
InfluxDB – Built for High-Performance Time Series Workloads
* Code Quality Rankings and insights are calculated and provided by Lumnify.
They vary from L1 to L5 with "L5" being the highest.
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README
Protocol Buffers - Google's data interchange format
Copyright 2008 Google Inc.
Protocol Buffers documentation
Overview
Protocol Buffers (a.k.a., protobuf) are Google's language-neutral, platform-neutral, extensible mechanism for serializing structured data. You can find protobuf's documentation on the Google Developers site.
This README file contains protobuf installation instructions. To install protobuf, you need to install the protocol compiler (used to compile .proto files) and the protobuf runtime for your chosen programming language.
Protocol Compiler Installation
The protocol compiler is written in C++. If you are using C++, please follow the [C++ Installation Instructions](src/README.md) to install protoc along with the C++ runtime.
For non-C++ users, the simplest way to install the protocol compiler is to download a pre-built binary from our GitHub release page.
In the downloads section of each release, you can find pre-built binaries in
zip packages: protoc-$VERSION-$PLATFORM.zip. It contains the protoc binary
as well as a set of standard .proto files distributed along with protobuf.
If you are looking for an old version that is not available in the release page, check out the Maven repository.
These pre-built binaries are only provided for released versions. If you want to use the github main version at HEAD, or you need to modify protobuf code, or you are using C++, it's recommended to build your own protoc binary from source.
If you would like to build protoc binary from source, see the [C++ Installation Instructions](src/README.md).
Protobuf Runtime Installation
Protobuf supports several different programming languages. For each programming language, you can find instructions in the corresponding source directory about how to install protobuf runtime for that specific language:
| Language | Source |
|---|---|
| C++ (include C++ runtime and protoc) | [src](src) |
| Java | [java](java) |
| Python | [python](python) |
| Objective-C | [objectivec](objectivec) |
| C# | [csharp](csharp) |
| Ruby | [ruby](ruby) |
| Go | protocolbuffers/protobuf-go |
| PHP | [php](php) |
| Dart | dart-lang/protobuf |
| Javascript | protocolbuffers/protobuf-javascript |
Quick Start
The best way to learn how to use protobuf is to follow the tutorials in our developer guide.
If you want to learn from code examples, take a look at the examples in the [examples](examples) directory.
Documentation
The complete documentation is available via the Protocol Buffers documentation.
Developer Community
To be alerted to upcoming changes in Protocol Buffers and connect with protobuf developers and users, join the Google Group.