Systems Design Concepts Practice Test

Why might gRPC outperform REST in some benchmarks?

Protocol Buffers produce roughly 10x throughput due to binary encoding and smaller payloads. REST is always faster than gRPC in all scenarios. gRPC uses JSON by default. gRPC bypasses HTTP entirely.

Correct Answer:

gRPC uses JSON by default.

Explanation:

The main factor is how data is encoded and transported. gRPC typically uses Protocol Buffers, a compact binary format, which keeps message sizes small and speeds up parsing compared to JSON. Smaller payloads mean less serialization work and lower network bandwidth, which can lead to higher throughput in benchmarks. In addition, gRPC runs over HTTP/2, offering features like multiplexed streams and header compression, which further improves efficiency and latency. The statement that gRPC uses JSON by default is a misconception; gRPC uses Protocol Buffers by default, while REST commonly uses JSON.

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