gRPC and Protocol Buffers

REST works well for many synchronous calls, but high-volume internal traffic can expose its costs: JSON serialization, larger payloads, and weaker compile-time contracts.

gRPC addresses this with Protocol Buffers and HTTP/2. It gives services a schema-first contract, generated client/server code, compact binary payloads, multiplexing, and better throughput.

It works best for stable, high-volume service-to-service communication.

This chapter covers how gRPC works, where it wins, where it falls short, and how to evolve schemas safely.