protobuf-net/protobuf-net

Health v2 · maintenance only

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Adoption not part of the score

4968 stars · 1090 forks observed · 2026-08-28

What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-08-29, confidence not recorded

protobuf-net is a contract-based serializer for .NET that writes data in Google's Protocol Buffers wire format using idiomatic .NET patterns like attributes. It supports a code-first approach, build-time serializer generation for native AOT and trimming, and integrates with protobuf-net.Grpc for code-first gRPC.

Use cases

• serialize .NET objects to protobuf binary format
• add protobuf serialization to existing C# classes with attributes
• generate C# or VB types from .proto schema files
• decode raw protobuf payloads without a schema
• use code-first gRPC services in .NET
• enable native AOT and trimming with compile-time serializers

When to choose

• you want protobuf serialization with idiomatic .NET APIs instead of Google's schema-first tooling
• you need to serialize pre-existing .NET types without rewriting them
• you need native AOT or trimming support with build-time serializer generation
• you want a code-first gRPC experience similar to WCF

When to avoid

• you need strict schema-first protobuf workflows shared across many languages
• you are not working on a .NET platform
• you need Google's official protobuf runtime features or conformance guarantees

Facets

library · maturity stable

serialization developer-tools backend apis dotnet cross-platform protocol-buffers protobuf code-first grpc c-sharp binary-serialization aot

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