Learn gRPC with online courses and programs

gRPC is a modern framework for building fast, scalable APIs. With the Go programming language and gRPC, you can write .proto files, generate code, and implement services and servers across languages and platforms.

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What is gRPC?

Google’s gRPC is a modern, open-source, and high-performance Remote Procedure Call (RPC) framework. An RPC is a software communication protocol. With it, you can access services and processes from a remote computer to use on a local one. gRPC is a more advanced version of RPC that can run in any environment. You can use it when:

Building a low-latency, highly scalable distributed system
Developing for mobile clients who communicate with a cloud server
Designing a new protocol for accuracy, efficiency, and language independence
Programming extensions for authentication, load balancing, logging, and monitoring

gRPC web applications have become a popular framework for communication because they're integral to microservices architecture, which allow for faster app development.¹ They’re also implemented on top of HTTP2 and based on binary coding protocol buffers, a method for serializing data.

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What is covered in a gRPC tutorial?

gRPCcourses may begin with an introductory overview of gRPC theory, how it works, and why it’s used, followed by a deep dive into protocol buffers’ efficiencies, the differences between APIs built with gRPC as opposed to HTTP, and advanced use cases. After working through a gRPC tutorial based on a real-world gRPC example, learners can delve into project work. This can involve writing gRPC service definitions into .proto files, generating gRPC golang server and client code, as well as troubleshooting security and error handling issues.

If you’re interested in becoming a developer, architect, programmer, or engineer, you may consider enrolling in a gRPC gateway course. With edX, you can explore a variety of online courses and programs for learners of varying skill levels to brush up on their competencies and advance their careers.

Explore jobs that use gRPC

Whether you pursue a bachelor’s degree, a master’s degree, or fast-track your skills development with a boot camp program, a gRPC course can help to prepare you for a number of tech jobs and roles such as:

Front-end engineers: develop clean, accessible, and modern web applications, libraries, and components.
Back-end engineers: architect APIs to collect backend data from disparate, unstable, or slow sources.
Senior web developers: build microservices to facilitate trading, test performance, and scale.
Senior software engineers: build best-in-class customer data platforms and e-commerce websites.
Test automation engineers: develop tools for data acquisition, hardware validation, and quality testing.
Full-stack engineers: build event-driven microservices to provide reliable, scalable customer service.
Senior technical writers: produce and maintain technical documents for a team of developers.
Mobile developers: rebuild app components, enhance libraries, and implement coding best practices.
Programmers: contribute to system architecture in a networked multi-user environment.
Architects: develop an environment to facilitate real-time messaging between mobile apps and servers.

How to use gRPC

Whether centered on gRPC Python or gRPC Java, online coding boot camps can form a helpful foundation for learning microservices architecture. Before enrolling in these courses, you may want to develop a basic understanding of protocol buffers and golang. You might also find it helpful to familiarize yourself with cloud computing or data science through a bachelor's degree program in computer science.

Knowledge of gRPC can prove useful in a variety of careers and workplaces. Lyft, for instance, uses gRPC to transmit real-time driver locations as they approach customers. A gRPC server sends a continuous stream of messages, serialized in protocol buffers, to the Lyft mobile app. The app then decodes the messages, translating them into a language that the customer can understand.²

In another example, Salesforce developers use gRPC to establish a unified company-wide interoperability strategy. In the past, JSON-based integrations have lacked flexibility and required extensive negotiation. By comparison, gRPC’s technical features allow contract-driven development practices and better understanding of the network’s interface. Teams enjoy more flexibility in designing streaming and push notification services through secure HTTP/2.³

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Frequently Asked Questions

What does gRPC stand for?

Developed in 2015, Google’s Remote Procedure Call (gRPC) is an internal framework used to connect cloud microservices through a free and open source platform. In a nutshell, it enables transparent communication between a client and server applications. By allowing a program to request a service from another program, in another computer and network, without having to understand all the network details, gRPC makes it easier to build connected systems.

What is the difference between gRPC and REST?

RPC was the go-to method for service requests before 2000. Representational State Transfer (REST) is a newer technology designed for domain modeling and data handling. When comparing gRPC to REST, the gRPC API architecture uses the neutral Protobuf format developed by Google instead of JSON. Also, gRPC uses the HTTP/2 binary format encapsulation and allows native code generation. It’s helpful to think of gRPC as an alternative to REST that gives you RPC’s lightweight structure along with HTTP to power your microservices project.

What is an example of gRPC?

You might use gRPC to enable lightweight messaging in low-power, low-bandwidth networks. Examples of gRPC APIs include Dropbox, Square, Netflix, Lyft, IBM, Cisco, and Google. Internet of Things (IoT) networks can also benefit from the performance of gRPC.

What’s the difference between gRPC and GraphQL?

Meta released GraphQL in 2015 as an efficient, developer-friendly method of client-server communication. Like gRPC, GraphQL uses codegen tools and works across languages. But unlike gRPC protocol buffers, GraphQL uses JSON, a text-based format that includes field names in addition to values. Most often, gRPC server-to-server communication is preferred when latency and streaming speed are most valued. On the other hand, GraphQL may be preferable in client-server communication where maximum data retrieval, flexibility, and powerful caching may be necessary.

Which is better: gRPC or WebSocket?

Both solutions make full-duplex and bidirectional communication possible, though they work using different data processing (gRPC’s HTTP/2 vs. WebSocket’s HTTP/1). If API security is of utmost importance to you, gRPC’s SSL/TLS encryption support may best serve your needs. WebSocket lacks built-in security features, requiring access control policies instead. Furthermore, gRPC allows applications to process various requests at once, while WebSocket works best with one request. You may opt for gRPC if you plan to scale, or WebSocket, for browser-accessible APIs that broadcast in real time.

Why use gRPC?

While gRPC can be challenging for some to learn, it has its benefits. Programmers may like that gRPC can work across multiple platforms and programming languages, and that it provides enhanced API security through the use of HTTP/2, authentication, and data encryption. While gRPC implementation time can be slower, messages transmit seven to 10 times faster than REST and others. This efficiency might be an advantage if you’re real-time streaming, working in a multilingual environment, or connecting microservices where message transmission efficiency is paramount.

FAQ: What Is gRPC? (2021). gRPC.io. Retrieved December 27, 2022.
4 Ways Enterprise Architects Are Using gRPC in the Real World. (2021). Red Hat. Retrieved December 27, 2022.
How gRPC Is Enabling Salesforce’s Unified Interoperability Strategy. (2019). CNCF.io. Retrieved December 27, 2022.

Last updated February 2023