Modern software is increasingly polyglot, distributed, and performance conscious, which makes fast, language-agnostic communication essential. Apache Thrift addresses this need by unifying data serialization and remote procedure calls behind a single, open, vendor-neutral framework. Developers describe types and services once in a concise Interface Definition Language, then generate client and server code for many languages. With built-in support for interface evolution, small-footprint servers, and pluggable protocols and transports, Thrift helps teams build efficient microservices that scale across embedded devices, containers, and enterprise backends while minimizing cross-language friction.
Thrift’s core mechanics are straightforward: define data and service contracts in IDL, compile them into language-specific stubs, pick a serialization protocol (binary, compact, or JSON) and a transport (such as TCP sockets, pipes, or in-memory buffers), and assemble a prebuilt server with a thin handler implementation. Layered transports enable capabilities like compression and encryption without changing the service contract. A simple “Hello” microservice illustrates the workflow: one IDL produces a Python server and matching clients in Python, C++, and Java with only a few lines of glue code, demonstrating consistent cross-language semantics (handler, processor, client) and rapid, boilerplate-free service construction.
Positioned among SOAP, REST, Protocol Buffers, and Avro, Thrift balances performance, reach, and flexibility. Compared with HTTP-centric SOAP/REST, Thrift’s binary protocols and TCP transports avoid web-stack overhead while retaining optional JSON and HTTP when needed; against Protocol Buffers, Thrift offers similar speed with broader in-tree language and server support plus modular transports/protocols; and unlike Avro’s schema-with-data model geared to storage, Thrift targets real-time RPC. Empirical results in the chapter show substantial latency and footprint gains—especially with TCP-based servers. The net takeaway: if you want one package that delivers fast serialization, lightweight cross-language RPC, pluggable protocols/transports, rich IDL with evolution, and wide platform coverage, Apache Thrift is a strong default choice for polyglot systems.
The Tiobe Index uses web search results to track programming language popularity (http://www.tiobe.com).
Figure1.2 Efficient translators are a core asset of any multi-language assembly.
Apache Thrift can be used to serialize data in cross-platform messaging scenarios.
The Apache Thrift RPC framework enables cross-platform services.
Time to complete 1 million service requests for various Java servers
Apache Thrift balances performance with reach and flexibility.
Apache Thrift is an effective solution in embedded, enterprise, and web technology environments.
Summary
Here are the most important points to take away from this chapter:
- Apache Thrift is a cross-language serialization and service implementation framework.
- Apache Thrift supports a wide array of languages and platforms.
- Apache Thrift makes it easy to build high performance services.
- Apache Thrift is a good fit for service-oriented and microservice architectures.
- Apache Thrift is an Interface Definition Language (IDL)-based framework.
- IDLs allow you to describe interfaces and generate code to support the interfaces automatically.
- IDLs allow you to describe types used in messaging, long-term storage, and service calls.
- Apache Thrift includes a modular serialization system, providing several built-in serialization protocols and support for custom serialization solutions.
- Apache Thrift includes a modular transport system, providing built-in memory and disk and network transports, yet makes it easy to add additional transports.
- Apache Thrift supports interface evolution empowering CI/CD environments and Agile teams.
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