# twitter/Serial

Light-weight, fast framework for object serialization in Java, with Android support.

Repository: https://github.com/twitter/Serial
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/twitter-serial
Language: Java
License: Apache-2.0
License Family: permissive
Last push: 2023-04-10T11:21:25+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 32/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 0, release rhythm 35, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 3338, "days_push": 1241, "days_rel": null, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 0}
- flags: no_releases
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1030, forks 109 (observed 2026-08-28T04:03:17.819418+00:00)

## What it is
Twitter Serial is a lightweight Java serialization framework that uses explicit Serializer classes instead of reflection-based Serializable. It offers significantly faster roundtrip serialization and smaller byte output, with Android support.

## Use cases
- serialize java objects to byte arrays efficiently
- replace java serializable with faster serialization
- reduce serialized payload size in android apps
- explicitly control how objects are serialized
- debug serialization of complex object graphs

## When to choose
- you need faster, smaller serialization than java's built-in Serializable
- you want explicit, reflection-free control over serialization
- you're building an Android or JVM app that persists or transmits objects as bytes

## When to avoid
- you want automatic schema-less serialization without writing serializers
- you need cross-language serialization formats like protobuf or JSON
- you need a library under heavy active development

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: maintenance
- function: serialization
- domain: developer-tools, mobile-development
- platform: jvm
- tags: java-serialization, android, byte-serialization, no-reflection

## Member repositories
- twitter/Serial (main) score 32

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:03:17.819418+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 2026-08-30T07:07:36.179813+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/twitter/Serial (fetched 2026-08-28T04:03:17.819418+00:00, sha dda914242a2e)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.