A Concrete RPC System
gRPC is a popular open framework for remote procedure calls. It pairs a strict service contract with an efficient binary wire format and runs over a multiplexed transport.
The Pieces
You describe the service once and let tooling do the rest.
- A service definition lists the methods and their request and response types.
- A code generator produces client and server stubs in many languages.
- Messages are encoded in a compact binary format rather than text.
- The transport runs over HTTP version two, which allows many calls on one connection.
Why Teams Pick It
The binary encoding and shared contract give real benefits.
- Smaller payloads and faster parsing than text formats.
- A single source of truth keeps client and server in sync.
- Built in support for streaming, deadlines, and cancellation.
The cost is that messages are not human readable, so you need tools to inspect traffic. gRPC shines for internal service to service traffic where both sides share the contract.
Key idea
gRPC is an RPC framework that generates typed stubs from a shared service definition and sends compact binary messages over a multiplexed HTTP connection, trading human readability for speed and a strong contract.