grpc-web VS connect-go

A proxy is required to communicate from web clients to a server running gRPC, and there are only two choices for this proxy: a. The Improbable gRPC-Web client or b. The Google gRPC-Web client

I'll have to try the Improbable method (https://github.com/improbable-eng/grpc-web) - as it definitely includes a websocket transport, hopefully this multiplexes requests on that transport and would hence solve the problem. I'll post again once I know...

I think you should check out https://github.com/improbable-eng/grpc-web/tree/master/go/grpcwebproxy

What I like with gRPC is that it allows both client and server side streaming. Twirp seems to not have this feature at all. In contrast the https://github.com/improbable-eng/grpc-web even supports server and client streaming while wrapping gRPC in a HTTP1.1 Web connection.

I highly recommend also to look into https://github.com/improbable-eng/grpc-web in contrast to the 'official' gRPC-web from google the improbable-eng Implementation can do both server side and client side gRPC streaming (when used with their JavaScript client library) and all this on an http1.1/websocket basis...

We use https://github.com/improbable-eng/grpc-web for the server part with https://github.com/protobufjs/protobuf.js on the frontend.

I'm debating whether or not to rely on grpc for all client to API transport using improbable-eng's grpc-web project. The hesitation I'm running into is concern over unforeseen pitfalls. The fact that it isn't widely used is the main cause for my apprehension.

If you use https://github.com/improbable-eng/grpc-web you do not need envoy, you can wrap your golang grpc connection. I then mux the grpc and grpc-web so that I can use the same endpoint to serve http1 and http2 clients. This makes it easy to host on the cloud, eg. google cloud run.

I'm setting up a server portion of a website which uses (g)RPC. My dev setup is a docker-compose.yml that starts up my server on 50051 & another service that runs grpcwebproxy (exposes 8080 and proxies to my server @ 50051).

In my opinion it's a good idea, it's the architecture we use at work, and it works well for us. The main limitation to be aware of is that many PaaS don't support gRPC traffic (because of the proxies used). For example, DigitalOcean App Platform or Heroku if I remember correctly. If the way you want to host your backend is OK with HTTP/2 and gRPC traffic, then it's not a limitation. One way around this limitation is to use the gRPC-Web protocol, or the Connect protocol (https://connect.build/). Unfortunately, Dart's gRPC client does not support the gRPC-Web protocol outside the web platform. So for a mobile application, it's not usable at the moment. (If this PR were accepted, it would solve the issue: https://github.com/grpc/grpc-dart/pull/557.) As for Connect, no client is currently offered by Buf for Dart. Don't hesitate if you want to know more. That said, I'd advise you to use the Connect implementation for Go to implement your backend. Connect will enable your server to speak all three protocols (gRPC, gRPC-Web and Connect), which is very useful in the long term. What's more, the code is cleaner, and you benefit from official support for observability with OpenTelemetry. If you don't know Buf (the creators of Connect),I suggest you visit their website: https://buf.build/. :-) Good luck!

As mentioned in the intro, we are going to use Buf and Connect as our tools. We’ll start by installing the dependencies.

Its annoying, because the rest of Connect (https://connect.build/) looks really really cool. But its no good for me in a complex app if I can't have multiple streams from the server :/

Consider checking out https://connect.build from https://buf.build. Supports a simpler protocol than grpc-web. Includes a js/ts client for frontend. Then you don’t necessarily need a rest layer, but could leverage the proxy your building.

Twirp (though I'd move to https://connect.build for my next project) to do JSON based RPC using protobufs.

my backend is go via https://github.com/bufbuild/connect-go , it's stable and all open source. just try and test it for your purpose. my project run all in 300 server more....