comparison.md

🏓 Comparison Table

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Here are some use cases stacked up.

	tinybuf	FlatBuffers	Protocol Buffers	Raw JSON
Serialization format	Uint8Array	Uint8Array	Uint8Array | JSON	JSON
Schema definition	inline	.fbs	.proto	manual
External compiler deps	none	cmake and flatc	none*	none
TypeScript types	automatic	generated	generated	manual
Reference data size†	34 bytes	68 bytes	72 bytes	175 bytes
Ease-of-use	🟢	🔴	🟢	🟢
Serialization speed	🟢	🟢	🟡	🔴
Memory use	🟢#	🟢	🔴	🔴
Property mangling support	🟢	🟡	🔴	🔴
Suitability for web APIs	🔴	🔴	🟢	🟢
Suitability for games / real-time applications	🟢	🟢	🟡	🔴
Supports HTML5 / Node.js	🟢	🟢	🟢	🟢
Supports other languages (e.g. C, C++, Java, Python)	🔴	🟢	🟢	🟢
float16 / bfloat16 encoding	🟢	🔴	🔴	🔴
scalar encoding	🟢	🔴	🔴	🔴
boolarray encoding	🟢	🔴	🔴	🔴
Arbitrary JSON	🟢	🔴	🔴	🟢
Arbitrary buffer-like data	🟢	🔴	🔴	🟢

^†Based on the Reference data formats and schemas

^*When using protobufjs

^#When decoding in-place, and encoding with shared buffer.

See Reference data

Sample data (Minified JSON):

{
  "players": [
    {
      "id": 123,
      "position": {
        "x": 1.0,
        "y": 2.0,
        "z": 3.0
      },
      "velocity": {
        "x": 1.0,
        "y": 2.0,
        "z": 3.0
      },
      "health": 1.00
    },
    {
      "id": 456,
      "position": {
        "x": 1.0,
        "y": 2.0,
        "z": 3.0
      },
      "velocity": {
        "x": 1.0,
        "y": 2.0,
        "y": 3.0
      },
      "health": 0.50
    }
  ]
}

tinybuf

const ExampleMessage = defineFormat({
  players: [
    {
      id: Type.UInt,
      position: {
        x: Type.Float16,
        y: Type.Float16,
        z: Type.Float16
      },
      velocity: {
        x: Type.Float16,
        y: Type.Float16,
        y: Type.Float16
      },
      health: Type.UScalar
    },
  ],
})

FlatBuffers

// ExampleMessage.fbs

namespace ExampleNamespace

table Vec3 {
  x: float
  y: float
  z: float
}

table Player {
  id: uint
  position: Vec3
  velocity: Vec3
  health: float
}

table ExampleMessage {
  players: [Player]
}

root_type ExampleMessage

Protocol Buffers (Proto3)

syntax = "proto3"

package example

message Vec3 {
  float x = 1
  float y = 2
  float z = 3
}

message Player {
  uint32 id = 1
  Vec3 position = 2
  Vec3 velocity = 3
  float health = 4
}

message ExampleMessage {
  repeated Player players = 1
}