Protobuf, short for Protocol Buffers, is a method developed by Google for serializing structured data. It allows developers to define data structures in a simple language and then generate code in various programming languages to read and write this data efficiently. This makes it useful for communication between different services and applications.
One of the key advantages of Protobuf is its compact binary format, which reduces the amount of data transmitted over networks compared to other formats like JSON or XML. This efficiency is particularly beneficial in scenarios where bandwidth is limited or performance is critical, such as in mobile applications or microservices.