# felixguendling/cista

Cista is a simple, high-performance, zero-copy C++ serialization & reflection library.

Repository: https://github.com/felixguendling/cista
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/cista
Homepage: https://cista.rocks
Language: C++
License: MIT
License Family: permissive
Topics: serialization, cpp, cpp17, reflection, deserialization, efficient, zero-copy, benchmark, high-performance
Last push: 2026-08-15T11:13:27+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 69/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 97, release rhythm 14, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 2838, "days_push": 18, "days_rel": 361, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 1}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 2244, forks 159 (observed 2026-08-28T04:06:29.985871+00:00)

## What it is
Cista is a single-header, dependency-free C++17 library for high-performance serialization and reflection of native C++ data structures, with zero-copy deserialization and support for cyclic and recursive structures. It includes serializable SwissTable-based hash map/set containers, automatic hash/equality derivation, optional recursive type-hash versioning, integrity checksums, and direct-to-filesystem serialization.

## Use cases
- serialize C++ structs to a binary format
- zero-copy deserialization of native C++ data structures
- fast serialization library for C++17 with no macros
- save and load complex or cyclic C++ objects to files
- serialize hash maps directly to a memory-mapped file
- version and checksum binary-serialized data structures
- C++ reflection without source code generation

## When to choose
- You want raw performance and to serialize your existing native structs without boilerplate, macros, or code generation
- You need a single-header, zero-dependency serialization solution in C++
- You must serialize complex graphs with cyclic references or recursive data structures
- You want to serialize directly to disk or memory-mapped files to save memory
- You need built-in data structure versioning and corruption checks via checksums

## When to avoid
- You need cross-language or cross-platform interoperability with standardized formats like JSON, Protobuf, or FlatBuffers
- You require human-readable output or schema evolution across different languages
- Your project is not C++ or is below C++17
- You need broad tooling/ecosystem support (browsers, codegen plugins) around the serialized format

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: active
- function: serialization
- domain: developer-tools, performance
- platform: cpp, cross-platform, windows
- tags: cpp17, header-only, zero-copy, reflection, single-header, hash-map, mmap, high-performance, no-macros, libfuzzer, linux, macos

## Member repositories
- felixguendling/cista (main) score 69

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:06:29.985871+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T02:44:01.589727+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/felixguendling/cista (fetched 2026-08-28T04:06:29.985871+00:00, sha 6862c443e3c0)
  - homepage: https://cista.rocks (fetched 2026-08-29T10:24:15.674989+00:00, sha 8119f1ae4ccd)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.