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protocolbuffers protobuf
Protocol Buffers - Google's data interchange format
Stars
71,988
Forks
16,270
Watchers: 71,988
Language
License: Other
Repository Radar Score
66 / 100
Growth
- 7d
- +0
- 30d
- +0
- %
- 0.0%
Not enough metric snapshots yet to chart growth for this repository.
Score breakdown
- popularity 91
- growth 0
- activity 100
- freshness 100
- community 88
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Protocol Buffers (a.k.a., protobuf) are Google's language-neutral, platform-neutral, extensible mechanism for serializing structured data. You can learn more about it in protobuf's documentation.
This README file contains protobuf installation instructions. To install protobuf, you need to install the protocol compiler (used to compile .proto files) and the protobuf runtime for your chosen programming language.
Most users will find working from supported releases to be the easiest path.
If you choose to work from the head revision of the main branch your build will occasionally be broken by source-incompatible changes and insufficiently-tested (and therefore broken) behavior.
If you are using C++ or otherwise need to build protobuf from source as a part of your project, you should pin to a release commit on a release branch.
This is because even release branches can experience some instability in between release commits.
Protobuf supports Bzlmod with Bazel 8 +. Users should specify a dependency on protobuf in their MODULE.bazel file as follows.
bazel_dep(name = "protobuf", version = <VERSION>)
Users can optionally override the repo name, such as for compatibility with WORKSPACE.
bazel_dep(name = "protobuf", version = <VERSION>, repo_name = "com_google_protobuf")
Users can also add the following to their legacy WORKSPACE file.
Note that with the release of 30.x there are a few more load statements to properly set up rules_java and rules_python.
http_archive(
name = "com_google_protobuf",
strip_prefix = "protobuf-VERSION",
sha256 = ...,
url = ...,
)
load("@com_google_protobuf//:protobuf_deps.bzl", "protobuf_deps")
protobuf_deps()
load("@rules_java//java:rules_java_deps.bzl", "rules_java_dependencies")
rules_java_dependencies()
load("@rules_java//java:repositories.bzl", "rules_java_toolchains")
rules_java_toolchains()
load("@rules_python//python:repositories.bzl", "py_repositories")
py_repositories()
The protobuf compiler is written in C++. If you are using C++, please follow the C++ Installation Instructions to install protoc along with the C++ runtime.
For non-C++ users, the simplest way to install the protocol compiler is to download a pre-built binary from our GitHub release page.
In the downloads section of each release, you can find pre-built binaries in
zip packages: protoc-$VERSION-$PLATFORM.zip. It contains the protoc binary
as well as a set of standard .proto files distributed along with protobuf.
If you are looking for an old version that is not available in the release page, check out the Maven repository.
These pre-built binaries are only provided for released versions. If you want to use the github main version at HEAD, or you need to modify protobuf code, or you are using C++, it's recommended to build your own protoc binary from source.
If you would like to build protoc binary from source, see the C++ Installation Instructions.
Protobuf supports several different programming languages. For each programming language, you can find instructions in the corresponding source directory about how to install protobuf runtime for that specific language:
| Language | Source |
|---|---|
| C++ (include C++ runtime and protoc) | src |
| Java | java |
| Python | python |
| Objective-C | objectivec |
| C# | csharp |
| Ruby | ruby |
| Go | protocolbuffers/protobuf-go |
| PHP | php |
| Dart | dart-lang/protobuf |
| JavaScript | protocolbuffers/protobuf-javascript |
The best way to learn how to use protobuf is to follow the tutorials in our developer guide.
If you want to learn from code examples, take a look at the examples in the examples directory.
The complete documentation is available at the Protocol Buffers doc site.
Read about our version support policy to stay current on support timeframes for the language libraries.
To be alerted to upcoming changes in Protocol Buffers and connect with protobuf developers and users, join the Google Group.
Languages
Share of the codebase by language, based on repository metadata from the host.
- C++ 38.3%
- C# 19.4%
- C 12.0%
- Java 11.4%
- Objective-C 7.2%
- Python 3.8%
- Starlark 2.9%
- PHP 1.4%
- Rust 1.3%
- Ruby 0.9%
- CMake 0.4%
- Kotlin 0.4%
- Shell 0.2%
- NASL 0.1%
- Lua 0.1%
- Swift 0.1%
- Pawn 0.0%
- Emacs Lisp 0.0%
- Vim Script 0.0%
- Batchfile 0.0%
- Objective-C++ 0.0%
- PowerShell 0.0%
- Awk 0.0%
- Makefile 0.0%
- M4 0.0%
- Linker Script 0.0%
- RenderScript 0.0%
Repository Radar analysis
Deterministic insights derived from public metadata and our observations — not personal testing or reviews.
Why this repository is interesting
- High absolute popularity (71,988 stars) signals broad adoption.
- Maintained recently (last push 2 weeks ago).
Who should use it
- Developers working primarily with C++
Potential use cases
- Reference or evaluate C++ open-source approaches in this domain
Strengths
- Recent repository activity
- README present in our index
- Declared license: Other
- Substantial fork count (16,270) suggests reuse and contribution interest
Limitations / considerations
- Insights are derived from public metadata and our observations — not a substitute for code review
What to watch
- Re-check last push, issues, and releases on GitHub before production adoption
Strong signals: Strong community interest · Active maintenance
Source: GitHub (public metadata) + Repository Radar analysis. We do not claim ownership of third-party repositories.