What is Apache Thrift? Is it the same as gRPC?

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DevGlossary

6 min readJul 24, 2023

Apache Thrift is an open-source framework and software project developed by the Apache Software Foundation. It is designed to enable efficient and scalable communication and data serialization between different programming languages.

Thrift allows developers to define data types and service interfaces in a platform-neutral way using a simple interface definition language (IDL). Once the IDL is defined, Thrift’s code generator can automatically create the necessary code in various programming languages, making it easy to implement communication between applications written in different languages.

Key features of Apache Thrift include:

Cross-Language Support: Thrift supports multiple programming languages, including but not limited to C++, Java, Python, Ruby, PHP, and more. This allows developers to build applications using their preferred languages while still enabling communication with other services written in different languages.
Efficient Binary Protocol: Thrift provides a compact binary protocol for data serialization, which helps in reducing the size of transmitted data and increasing communication efficiency. This is particularly beneficial in distributed systems or when handling large amounts of data.
RPC Framework: Thrift offers a Remote Procedure Call (RPC) framework, allowing different services to communicate with each other over a network. This facilitates the building of distributed systems, microservices, and client-server applications.
Versioning and Backward Compatibility: Thrift supports versioning, ensuring that services can evolve without breaking existing clients. This is important in scenarios where multiple versions of services may be active in the system.
Extensibility: Thrift’s IDL allows the definition of complex data types and interfaces, making it easy to extend and customize as per application needs.

The GitHub repository you mentioned, “https://github.com/apache/thrift," is the official repository of Apache Thrift, where you can find the source code, documentation, and community-contributed resources related to the project. If you’re interested in using or contributing to Apache Thrift, this repository is a great place to start.

Let's understand it using an example

Let's consider a real-world example to illustrate how Apache Thrift can be used and the problem it solves.

Imagine you are building a distributed system for an online shopping platform. The system consists of multiple microservices, each responsible for specific functionality, such as user authentication, product catalogues, shopping carts, and payment processing. Additionally, you want to support multiple client applications written in different programming languages, like a web application in JavaScript, a mobile app in Java, and an inventory management system in Python.

The Problem: The challenge here is to enable communication between these microservices and client applications efficiently, as they are written in different languages. Each microservice needs to expose a well-defined interface that clients can use to request data or perform actions. Furthermore, the data exchanged between services and clients should be compact and optimized to reduce network overhead.

Using Apache Thrift:

Interface Definition: You start by defining the interfaces and data structures in Apache Thrift's Interface Definition Language (IDL). For example, you define a service interface called ProductService that contains methods like getProductByID, searchProducts, and updateProductStock. You also define data structures for products, users, and other relevant entities.

thriftCopy code

// ProductService.thrift

namespace java com.example
namespace py example

struct Product {
  1: i32 id,
  2: string name,
  3: double price,
  // ... other fields ...
}

service ProductService {
  Product getProductByID(1: i32 productID),
  list<Product> searchProducts(1: string query),
  bool updateProductStock(1: i32 productID, 2: i32 quantity),
  // ... other methods ...
}

Code Generation: Using the Thrift compiler, you generate code for each target language. This will create language-specific stubs and serializers/deserializers based on the IDL definition.
Implementing Microservices: For each microservice, you implement the corresponding Thrift service interface. For example, the ProductService microservice will have methods like getProductByID, searchProducts, and updateProductStock, handling the business logic for each operation.
Client Applications: In each client application, you use the generated Thrift client code to interact with the microservices. For instance, in the JavaScript web app, you would use the JavaScript client library to make RPC calls to the remote ProductService.

The Benefits:

Language Interoperability: Thrift allows seamless communication between microservices and clients written in different programming languages. Each can use the generated code for their specific language to communicate with the services.
Efficient Data Serialization: Thrift's binary protocol serializes data in a compact manner, reducing network bandwidth usage and improving performance. This is crucial for fast and efficient communication in a distributed system.
Versioning Support: As the system evolves, you can update the Thrift IDL to add new methods or fields. Thrift's versioning support ensures backward compatibility, so existing clients can continue to work with the updated microservices without breaking.

In summary, Apache Thrift solves the problem of language and platform heterogeneity in a distributed system by providing a language-agnostic way to define interfaces and serialize data. This allows teams to work with their preferred programming languages, while still enabling efficient communication between microservices and clients, making it an ideal choice for building scalable, cross-platform applications.

Is it the same as gRPC?

Apache Thrift and gRPC are both open-source frameworks designed to address similar problems of efficient communication and data serialization between services in a distributed system. While they share some similarities, there are notable differences between the two:

Protocol:

Thrift: Apache Thrift offers multiple protocols for data serialization, including a compact binary protocol, a JSON protocol, and more. The binary protocol is the default and widely used for its efficiency.
gRPC: gRPC uses Protocol Buffers (protobuf) as its default and primary data serialization protocol. Protocol Buffers are also binary and efficient in terms of serialization.

IDL and Code Generation:

Thrift: Thrift uses its own Interface Definition Language (IDL) to define services and data structures. The Thrift compiler then generates code in various programming languages for client and server implementations.
gRPC: gRPC also uses a custom IDL to define services and messages. It relies on Protocol Buffers to describe the data structures. The gRPC toolchain generates client and server code based on the IDL and protobuf specifications.

Cross-Language Support:

Thrift: Apache Thrift has long been known for its wide cross-language support, providing code generation for languages like C++, Java, Python, Ruby, PHP, and more.
gRPC: gRPC also supports a broad range of languages, including C++, Java, Python, Ruby, Go, JavaScript, C#, and others.

HTTP/2 vs. Custom Transports:

Thrift: By default, Thrift does not use HTTP/2 as its transport protocol, but it can be adapted to use it or other custom transport mechanisms.
gRPC: gRPC is designed to work over HTTP/2, which brings benefits like multiplexing, flow control, and header compression, making it a robust and efficient choice for communication.

Community and Development:

Thrift: Apache Thrift has been around longer and has a mature community and ecosystem. It is used in a variety of applications across different industries.
gRPC: gRPC is developed by Google and has gained significant traction, especially within the cloud-native and microservices communities.

Both Thrift and gRPC are suitable for building distributed systems and microservice architectures. The choice between them often depends on factors such as the existing technology stack, language preferences, specific performance needs, and the level of integration with other services or frameworks. Ultimately, both frameworks offer powerful solutions for efficient communication between services, and the decision to use one over the other depends on the specific requirements of the project.

Who is using thrift and gRPC?

Apache Thrift:

Facebook: Thrift was originally developed at Facebook and is used extensively within the company for building many of its internal services.
Twitter: Twitter has used Thrift for communication between various microservices in their infrastructure.
Evernote: Evernote has used Thrift to implement communication between their services written in different programming languages.
Microsoft: Microsoft has utilized Thrift in some of their projects for cross-language communication.

gRPC:

Google: Google developed gRPC and uses it internally for various services and APIs.
Netflix: Netflix has adopted gRPC for inter-service communication and building their internal infrastructure.
Uber: Uber has used gRPC for building high-performance APIs and services within their system.
Square: Square, a financial services company, has mentioned using gRPC for communication between their services.
CoreDNS: CoreDNS, a popular DNS server, offers a gRPC plugin for remote management.