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NSQ vs gRPC: What are the differences?

Introduction

NSQ and gRPC are both popular technologies used in building distributed systems. However, there are some key differences between NSQ and gRPC that developers should be aware of. In this article, we will explore six key differences between NSQ and gRPC.

  1. Messaging vs Remote Procedure Call: NSQ is primarily a messaging system, designed to handle the reliable delivery of messages between distributed components. It provides features like pub-sub messaging, message queues, and fault-tolerant message delivery. On the other hand, gRPC is a framework for building remote procedure call (RPC) systems. It enables communication between services by allowing them to invoke methods on remote services as if they were local.

  2. Transport Protocol: NSQ uses its custom TCP-based protocol for communication between publishers and subscribers. It handles message delivery, routing, and load balancing. In contrast, gRPC uses HTTP/2 as its transport protocol. HTTP/2 provides features like multiplexed streams, flow control, and header compression, making gRPC efficient for high-performance communication.

  3. Serialization: NSQ typically uses JSON or binary serialization for the messages it carries. It offers flexibility in terms of the payload format, but JSON serialization introduces higher overhead. On the other hand, gRPC uses Protocol Buffers as the default serialization mechanism. Protocol Buffers are a language-agnostic, efficient, and extensible serialization format that provides smaller message sizes and faster serialization/deserialization.

  4. Service Definition: NSQ does not enforce a specific contract or service definition. It allows publishers and subscribers to define their own message formats and publish/subscribe to those topics. In comparison, gRPC uses Protocol Buffers to define a service interface and the payload of request/response messages. This strong typing and service contract enable better code generation, documentation, and inter-service communication.

  5. Language Support: NSQ has client libraries available in various programming languages like Go, Java, Python, and Ruby. It provides flexibility to choose the language of choice for building NSQ producers and consumers. On the other hand, gRPC offers broader language support with client libraries available in many languages, including Go, Java, Python, Ruby, C++, C#, and more. This wide language support makes gRPC suitable for polyglot microservices architectures.

  6. Error Handling: NSQ has a built-in retry mechanism for failed messages, allowing publishers to control the retry behavior. It also has built-in support for message timeouts and requeuing. In contrast, gRPC relies on the underlying HTTP/2 protocol's status codes and headers for error handling. It provides facilities like status codes, trailers, and metadata for handling errors in a more standardized manner.

In Summary, NSQ is a messaging system primarily used for reliable message delivery, while gRPC is a framework for building RPC systems. NSQ uses a custom TCP-based protocol, supports flexible message formats, and offers language libraries in various programming languages. On the other hand, gRPC uses HTTP/2 as its transport protocol, leverages Protocol Buffers for efficient serialization, enforces strong service contracts, provides broader language support, and relies on HTTP/2 error handling mechanisms.

Advice on gRPC and NSQ
Pramod Nikam
Co Founder at Usability Designs ยท | 2 upvotes ยท 541.5K views
Needs advice
on
Apache ThriftApache ThriftKafkaKafka
and
NSQNSQ

I am looking into IoT World Solution where we have MQTT Broker. This MQTT Broker Sits in one of the Data Center. We are doing a lot of Alert and Alarm related processing on that Data, Currently, we are looking into Solution which can do distributed persistence of log/alert primarily on remote Disk.

Our primary need is to use lightweight where operational complexity and maintenance costs can be significantly reduced. We want to do it on-premise so we are not considering cloud solutions.

We looked into the following alternatives:

Apache Kafka - Great choice but operation and maintenance wise very complex. Rabbit MQ - High availability is the issue, Apache Pulsar - Operational Complexity. NATS - Absence of persistence. Akka Streams - Big learning curve and operational streams.

So we are looking into a lightweight library that can do distributed persistence preferably with publisher and subscriber model. Preferable on JVM stack.

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Replies (1)
Naresh Kancharla
Staff Engineer at Nutanix ยท | 4 upvotes ยท 539K views
Recommends
on
KafkaKafka

Kafka is best fit here. Below are the advantages with Kafka ACLs (Security), Schema (protobuf), Scale, Consumer driven and No single point of failure.

Operational complexity is manageable with open source monitoring tools.

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Manage your open source components, licenses, and vulnerabilities
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Pros of gRPC
Pros of NSQ
  • 24
    Higth performance
  • 15
    The future of API
  • 13
    Easy setup
  • 5
    Contract-based
  • 4
    Polyglot
  • 2
    Garbage
  • 29
    It's in golang
  • 20
    Distributed
  • 20
    Lightweight
  • 18
    Easy setup
  • 17
    High throughput
  • 11
    Publish-Subscribe
  • 8
    Scalable
  • 8
    Save data if no subscribers are found
  • 6
    Open source
  • 5
    Temporarily kept on disk
  • 2
    Simple-to use
  • 1
    Free
  • 1
    Topics and channels concept
  • 1
    Load balanced
  • 1
    Primarily in-memory

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Cons of gRPC
Cons of NSQ
    Be the first to leave a con
    • 1
      Long term persistence
    • 1
      Get NSQ behavior out of Kafka but not inverse
    • 1
      HA

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    - No public GitHub repository available -

    What is gRPC?

    gRPC is a modern open source high performance RPC framework that can run in any environment. It can efficiently connect services in and across data centers with pluggable support for load balancing, tracing, health checking...

    What is NSQ?

    NSQ is a realtime distributed messaging platform designed to operate at scale, handling billions of messages per day. It promotes distributed and decentralized topologies without single points of failure, enabling fault tolerance and high availability coupled with a reliable message delivery guarantee. See features & guarantees.

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    What are some alternatives to gRPC and NSQ?
    GraphQL
    GraphQL is a data query language and runtime designed and used at Facebook to request and deliver data to mobile and web apps since 2012.
    RabbitMQ
    RabbitMQ gives your applications a common platform to send and receive messages, and your messages a safe place to live until received.
    Kafka
    Kafka is a distributed, partitioned, replicated commit log service. It provides the functionality of a messaging system, but with a unique design.
    REST
    An architectural style for developing web services. A distributed system framework that uses Web protocols and technologies.
    MQTT
    It was designed as an extremely lightweight publish/subscribe messaging transport. It is useful for connections with remote locations where a small code footprint is required and/or network bandwidth is at a premium.
    See all alternatives