# cloudwego/kitex

Go RPC framework with high-performance and strong-extensibility for building micro-services.

Repository: https://github.com/cloudwego/kitex
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/kitex
Homepage: https://www.cloudwego.io/docs/kitex/
Language: Go
License: Apache-2.0
License Family: permissive
Topics: rpc, go, microservices, framework, grpc, protobuf, streaming, thrift
Last push: 2026-08-26T08:19:13+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 94/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 99, release rhythm 83, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 1881, "days_push": 7, "days_rel": 117, "gap_med": 14.5, "n_releases_24m": 21}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 8026, forks 917 (observed 2026-08-28T04:10:11.921493+00:00)

## What it is
Kitex is a high-performance, strongly extensible Go RPC framework for building microservices, developed by ByteDance's CloudWeGo team. It integrates the Netpoll network library, supports Thrift, Protobuf, and gRPC protocols, and ships with built-in service governance features like load balancing, circuit breaking, and tracing.

## Use cases
- build high-performance microservices in Go
- implement RPC services with Thrift or Protobuf
- add service governance like circuit breaking and rate limiting to Go services
- generate Go client and server code from IDL definitions
- stream data between services with bidirectional streaming RPC
- replace gRPC with a faster Go RPC framework
- integrate service discovery and load balancing in a Go microservice stack

## When to choose
- you need maximum RPC performance in Go beyond standard gRPC
- you want pluggable, extensible middleware and governance modules
- you use Thrift, Protobuf, or gRPC protocols and want unified tooling
- you're building large-scale microservice architectures with registry, retry, and observability needs

## When to avoid
- you need a simple REST/HTTP API framework rather than RPC
- your team is outside the Go ecosystem (consider Volo for Rust)
- you want a minimal library with no framework conventions or code generation
- your services must interoperate with clients that only support plain gRPC without TTHeader extensions

## Facets
- artifact type: framework
- maturity: stable
- function: rpc, microservices, serialization, middleware, rate-limiting, monitoring, tracing, logging, service-discovery, load-testing
- domain: microservices, backend, developer-tools, apis
- platform: go, windows, cross-platform
- tags: thrift, protobuf, grpc, netpoll, code-generation, service-governance, circuit-breaker, cloudwego, high-performance, streaming, linux, macos

## Member repositories
- cloudwego/kitex (main) score 94

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:10:11.921493+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 2026-08-29T17:31:48.825993+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/cloudwego/kitex (fetched 2026-08-28T04:10:11.921493+00:00, sha bb61a546d923)
  - homepage: https://www.cloudwego.io/docs/kitex/ (fetched 2026-08-29T08:29:21.105347+00:00, sha 93ee16b21f35)
  - site_page: https://www.cloudwego.io/docs (fetched 2026-08-29T08:29:21.116233+00:00, sha cd3f3e5f90ed)
  - site_page: https://www.cloudwego.io/docs/kitex/overview (fetched 2026-08-29T08:29:21.117821+00:00, sha 72f477f339f1)
  - site_page: https://www.cloudwego.io/docs/hertz (fetched 2026-08-29T08:29:21.107662+00:00, sha 9bf07ea1d5c8)
  - site_page: https://www.cloudwego.io/docs/volo (fetched 2026-08-29T08:29:21.109330+00:00, sha 98a27d767af2)
  - site_page: https://www.cloudwego.io/docs/eino (fetched 2026-08-29T08:29:21.110980+00:00, sha 34d92c501d05)
  - site_page: https://www.cloudwego.io/about (fetched 2026-08-29T08:29:21.112725+00:00, sha 3dd7258a47b2)
  - site_page: https://www.cloudwego.io/zh/docs/kitex (fetched 2026-08-29T08:29:21.114552+00:00, sha 3eab81699a58)
  - site_page: https://www.cloudwego.io/docs/kitex/getting-started (fetched 2026-08-29T08:29:21.119436+00:00, sha 937e06fef26e)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.