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What is the difference between the gRPC framework and the net/rpc package of the Golang programming language?

Both gRPC and the net/rpc package are under the Google umbrella. gRPC is a "generic RPC framework" that uses ProtoBuffer to serialize and deserialize data, whilst the net/rpc package appears to be able to perform "roughly" the same thing with encoding/gob.

The question now is, what differentiates them from one another? Which of these options comes with more benefits and fewer drawbacks?

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lance ziemann

asked  Jun 12, 2022

3084views
2answers
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lance ziemann

answered  Jun 30, 2022

0

no answer??

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Steve Diaz, Software Developer at Walmart

answered  Apr 15, 2023

0

Hello @lance ziemann

Both gRPC and the net/rpc package in Golang are used to implement remote procedure call (RPC) in distributed systems, but they differ in several ways:

  1. Protocol: net/rpc uses a custom protocol while gRPC uses Protocol Buffers (protobuf) over HTTP/2.

  2. Language Support: gRPC supports multiple languages, including Go, C++, Java, Python, Ruby, and others, while the net/rpc package is only available in Go.

  3. Streaming: gRPC supports both unary (single-request, single-response) and streaming RPCs (multiple requests and responses), while net/rpc only supports unary RPCs.

  4. Interceptors: gRPC has interceptors, which allow middleware functions to be executed before and after the handler function, while net/rpc does not have this feature.

  5. Code Generation: gRPC generates client and server code from .proto files, while net/rpc does not have this feature.

  6. Transport Security: gRPC has built-in support for transport security using Transport Layer Security (TLS), while net/rpc does not have this feature.

Overall, gRPC provides more features and flexibility than the net/rpc package, making it a better choice for building distributed systems with modern requirements.

Hope it helps you.