What is gRPC? - Definition & Meaning

Definition

gRPC is an open-source Remote Procedure Call (RPC) framework developed by Google that uses Protocol Buffers for efficient, strongly-typed communication between services. It offers significantly higher performance than traditional REST APIs.

Technical explanation

gRPC uses HTTP/2 as its transport layer, enabling multiplexing (multiple requests over a single connection), header compression, and server push. Protocol Buffers (protobuf) serialize data into a compact binary format that is up to 10x smaller than JSON and faster to parse. Service definitions are described in .proto files that automatically generate client and server code for 12+ programming languages. gRPC supports four communication patterns: unary (request-response), server streaming, client streaming, and bidirectional streaming. Deadlines and cancellation propagate automatically through the service chain, preventing resource waste. Interceptors provide middleware functionality for logging, authentication, and monitoring. Load balancing in gRPC can be client-side (via service discovery) or proxy-based (via Envoy). gRPC-Web enables calling gRPC from browsers through a proxy. Reflection APIs enable runtime service discovery. The health checking protocol is built in for integration with load balancers and orchestrators. Compared to REST, gRPC trades human-readability for performance and type safety.

How MG Software applies this

MG Software applies gRPC in projects where high throughput and low latency are crucial, particularly for internal microservice communication. We define strictly typed API contracts via Protocol Buffers and automatically generate client code. For public APIs we use REST or GraphQL, while gRPC serves as the internal backbone.

Practical examples

• A payment platform using gRPC for communication between the order service and payment service, with bidirectional streaming for real-time transaction status updates.
• A machine learning platform leveraging gRPC to efficiently distribute model inference requests to GPU servers, where protobuf eliminates JSON serialization overhead.
• A gaming backend using gRPC server streaming to push real-time game state updates to all connected players with minimal latency.

Related terms