Table of Contents

Features

  • Serializes in the compact and fast MessagePack format.
  • Performance is on par with the highly tuned and popular MessagePack-CSharp library.
  • Automatically serialize any type annotated with the PolyType [GenerateShape] attribute or non-annotated types by adding a 'witness' type with a similar annotation.
  • Fast ref-based serialization and deserialization minimizes copying of large structs.
  • NativeAOT and trimming compatible.
  • Serialize only properties that have non-default values (optionally).
  • Keep memory pressure low by using async serialization directly to/from I/O like a network, IPC pipe or file.
  • Streaming deserialization for large or over-time sequences.
  • Primitive msgpack reader and writer APIs for low-level scenarios.
  • Author custom converters for advanced scenarios.
  • Security mitigations for stack overflows.
  • Optionally serialize your custom types as arrays of values instead of maps of names and value for more compact representation and even higher performance.
  • Support for serializing instances of certain types derived from the declared type and deserializing them back to their original runtime types using unions.
  • Optionally preserve reference equality across serialization/deserialization.
  • Structural (i.e. deep, by-value) equality checking for arbitrary types, both with and without collision resistant hash functions.

Feature comparison

See how this library compares to other .NET MessagePack libraries.

In many cases, the ✅ or ❌ in the table below are hyperlinks to the relevant documentation or an issue you can vote up to request the feature.

Feature Nerdbank.MessagePack MessagePack-CSharp
Optimized for high performance ✅ ✅
Contractless data types ✅1 ✅
Attributed data types ✅ ✅
Polymorphic serialization ✅ ✅2
F# union type support ✅ ❌
Typeless serialization ❌ ✅
dynamic serialization ✅ ✅
Skip serializing default values ✅ ❌
Required and non-nullable property deserialization guaranteed ✅ ❌
Dynamically use maps or arrays for most compact format ✅ ❌
Surrogate types for automatic serialization of unserializable types ✅ ❌
Custom converters ✅ ✅
Stateful converters ✅ ❌
Deserialization callback ✅ ✅
MsgPack extensions ✅ ✅
LZ4 compression ❌ ✅
Trim-safe ✅ ❌
NativeAOT ready ✅ ❌3
Unity ✅4 ✅
Async ✅ ❌
Endless streaming deserialization ✅ ✅
Reference preservation ✅ ❌
Cyclical references ✅ ❌
JSON schema export ✅ ❌
Secure defaults ✅ ❌
Automatic hash collection deserialization in secure mode ✅ ✅
Automatic collision-resistant hash function for arbitrary types ✅ ❌
Rejection of data that defines multiple values for the same property ✅ ❌
Free of mutable statics ✅ ❌
Structural IEqualityComparer<T> for arbitrary types ✅ ❌

Security is a complex subject, and an area where Nerdbank.MessagePack is actively evolving. Learn more about how to secure your deserializer.

  1. Nerdbank.MessagePack's approach is more likely to be correct by default and more flexible to fixing when it is not.↩

  2. MessagePack-CSharp is limited to derived types that can be attributed on the base type, whereas Nerdbank.MessagePack allows for dynamically identifying derived types at runtime.↩

  3. Although MessagePack-CSharp does not support .NET 8 flavor NativeAOT, it has long-supported Unity's il2cpp runtime, but it requires careful avoidance of dynamic features.↩

  4. Particular steps are currently required, and limitations apply. See our unity doc for more information.↩

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