3 ms·

Are FlatBuffers essentially Capnproto without the RPC?

• alexhutcheson 8y ago
  FlatBuffers can be used with gRPC, so they shouldn't need a separate RPC ecosystem like Cap'n Proto: https://grpc.io/blog/flatbuffers https://grpc.io/blog/flatbuffers
  • presscast 8y ago
    Right, but I'm asking if FlatBuffers' approach to encoding is similar to Cap'n Proto. It seems like the answer is "yes", but I might be missing something.
    • kentonv 8y ago
      They are both zero-copy, but the designs have a number of differences. I compared them back in 2014: https://capnproto.org/news/2014-06-17-capnproto-flatbuffers-sbe.html https://capnproto.org/news/2014-06-17-capnproto-flatbuffers-... Disclaimers: 1) I'm the author of Cap'n Proto; I'm probably biased. 2) A lot could have changed since 2014. (Though, obviously, serialization formats need to be backwards-compatible which limits the amount they can change...)
      • presscast 8y ago
        Cool, thanks for this! I'm happily using Cap'n Proto in a side project, and so far have really enjoyed working with it. It's a really impressive piece of engineering.