CODEWITHSUNDEEP
serializationprotocol-buffersflatbufferscapnproto
NEO
NEO

Reputation: 2185

FlatBuffers vs. Protobuf

My question is if FlatBuffers is much faster than Protobuf, why isn't it more widely used compared to Protobuf?

It used to be an experimental thing but it seems to be mature enough now but isn't widely used yet. It seems people mostly use Flatbuffers for mobile apps/games. Why is that the case?

Upvotes: 10

Views: 12203

Answers (3)

chys
chys

Reputation: 1652

I think there are multiple factors:

  1. People usually don't bother to switch if the old technology works (unless it becomes a bottleneck and must be optimized).
  2. Flatbuffers indeed optimizes very aggressively for speed, but at the cost of bloated data size. Protobuf's optimizations are more balanced between speed and size. The same message can usually be much smaller in size if serialized with protobuf than with flatbuffers. If your message is meant to be sent by network, you will need to take this into account. (Don't talk about compression -- compression will probably cost you 100 times more CPU cycles than you have saved by switching from protobuf to flatbuffers.)
  3. Flatbuffers's API is difficult to use. It is not easy at all to build and serialize a flatbuffers table, especially if it has array members and/or nested tables. In contrast, it took me literally just one or two minutes to learn how to set fields of a protobuf message and serialize it to a byte array.

Upvotes: 7

AKANKSHA PANDEY
AKANKSHA PANDEY

Reputation: 81

There are several reasons for this:

  1. As you mentioned, flatbuffers are being used mostly in apps and games. This is because this is their best application. Since flatbuffers are faster, their main application would be to use them in low latency applications. And it is gaining popularity in that sector.

  2. When the existing technology works fine, people/organizations, in general, don't want to invest time and resources for a newer technology. I have personally worked on a proof of concept involving flatbuffers for a big organizations. There are many hurdles before the final decision of using the technology is taken. Legacy systems are still using xml and json, let alone thinking about protobufs.

Upvotes: 8

Rob
Rob

Reputation: 126

I have only ever used Protobuf at my job. I think the answer to this question is the same for the adoption curve of all new technologies. "Why should we switch and have to invest in training and accept the new inherent risk of bugs if what we are using works fine". And I have also discovered that there is a very small percentage of developers who spend a lot of time learning about the latest and greatest tools. Most find something that works and just keep using that until they are forced to change either from vulnerabilities or a performance requirement.

Upvotes: 6

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