protobuf VS grpc-web

Google Maps URLs contain the pb parameter contains string-encoded Protobuf. The format is the same as for the data parameter in the browser URL on Google Maps. It contains !-separated values. There are several answers on StackOverflow, gists on GitHub, some blog posts about decoding, and even a kinda official guide on reverse engineering protobuf, but none of this touches pagination.

Seems like protoduf.js has the exact same methods as Google’s implementations with the same names (encode/decode to not prepend with length, encodeDelimited/decodeDelimited for prepending length). It is hard for me to say they’re adding to the standard when they’re just replicating Google’s libraries.

https://github.com/protobufjs/protobuf.js#toolset

If it really is a problem, then another option is to use Protobus or Message Pack for serializing (maybe into base64?).

I use protocol buffers. protobufjs translates into json.

I have tried GRPC gateway generation tools: - PBJS: https://github.com/protobufjs/protobuf.js/

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

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).