# tokio-rs/prost

PROST! a Protocol Buffers implementation for the Rust Language

Repository: https://github.com/tokio-rs/prost
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/prost
Language: Rust
License: Apache-2.0
License Family: permissive
Topics: protobuf, rust
Last push: 2026-08-03T05:14:33+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 89/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:20:16.233290+00:00)
- activity 95, release rhythm 75, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 3368, "days_push": 30, "days_rel": 87, "gap_med": 76, "n_releases_24m": 8}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 4749, forks 635 (observed 2026-08-28T04:08:57.884020+00:00)

## What it is
prost is a Protocol Buffers implementation for Rust that generates simple, idiomatic Rust types from proto2 and proto3 files. It supports serialization and deserialization via the bytes crate and includes prost-build for compiling .proto files during Cargo builds.

## Use cases
- generate Rust types from .proto files
- serialize and deserialize protobuf messages in Rust
- encode structured data for gRPC services
- add protobuf serialization to existing Rust types with derive attributes
- build a Rust client or server that speaks protobuf

## When to choose
- you need protobuf support in Rust with clean, idiomatic generated code
- you want fast binary serialization using the bytes crate
- you are building gRPC services in Rust (e.g., with tonic)
- you want proto comments preserved in generated code

## When to avoid
- you need runtime reflection or dynamic message descriptors
- you need protobuf support in a language other than Rust
- you want a batteries-included gRPC framework rather than just protobuf encoding

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: stable
- function: serialization, parser
- domain: developer-tools, apis, backend
- platform: rust, cross-platform
- tags: protobuf, code-generation, grpc-adjacent, proto2, proto3

## Member repositories
- tokio-rs/prost (main) score 89

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:08:57.884020+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 2026-08-29T18:18:55.690707+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/tokio-rs/prost (fetched 2026-08-28T04:08:57.884020+00:00, sha 6bd71641ee46)
  - registry_crates: https://crates.io/api/v1/crates/prost (fetched 2026-08-29T09:02:24.249549+00:00, sha 1e040d203db0)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.