Protocol Buffers

aid: protocol-buffers
name: Protocol Buffers
description: Protocol Buffers (Protobuf) is Google's language-neutral, platform-neutral, extensible mechanism for serializing
  structured data. It defines a schema language for specifying message structures in .proto files, which are compiled into
  efficient binary wire format code for multiple programming languages. Widely used with gRPC for high-performance remote
  procedure calls and data interchange.
type: Index
image: https://kinlane-images.s3.amazonaws.com/shared/apis-json/apis-json-logo.jpg
url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/protocol-buffers/refs/heads/main/apis.yml
tags:
- Data Format
- gRPC
- Protobuf
- Protocol Buffers
- Serialization
created: '2025-01-01'
modified: '2026-04-28'
specificationVersion: '0.19'
apis:
- aid: protocol-buffers:protocol-buffers
  name: Protocol Buffers
  description: Protocol Buffers (Protobuf) is Google's language-neutral, platform-neutral, extensible mechanism for serializing
    structured data. It defines a schema language for specifying message structures in .proto files, which are compiled into
    efficient binary wire format code for multiple programming languages.
  humanURL: https://protobuf.dev/
  tags:
  - Data Format
  - gRPC
  - Protobuf
  - Protocol Buffers
  - Serialization
  properties:
  - type: Documentation
    url: https://protobuf.dev/overview/
  - type: GettingStarted
    url: https://protobuf.dev/getting-started/
  - type: Reference
    url: https://protobuf.dev/reference/
  - type: JSONLDContext
    url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/protocol-buffers/refs/heads/main/json-ld/protocol-buffers-context.jsonld
  - type: JSONSchema
    url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/protocol-buffers/refs/heads/main/json-schema/protocol-buffers-descriptor.json
  - type: JSONSchema
    url: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/api-evangelist/protocol-buffers/refs/heads/main/json-schema/protocol-buffers-json-mapping.json
common:
- type: DomainSecurity
  url: security/protocol-buffers-domain-security.yml
- type: Website
  url: https://protobuf.dev/
- type: Documentation
  url: https://protobuf.dev/overview/
- type: GitHubOrganization
  url: https://github.com/protocolbuffers
- type: GitHubRepository
  url: https://github.com/protocolbuffers/protobuf
- url: https://protobuf.dev/news/index.xml
  type: Blog
maintainers:
- FN: Kin Lane
  email: kin@apievangelist.com