AVRO-SCHEMA

Compact binary serialization with JSON schemas.

Definition

Avro JSON schema describes primitive types (null, boolean, int, long, float, double, bytes, string), complex types (record, enum, array, map, union, fixed). Evolutive (added/removed fields with default). Spec v1.12 published 2024. Lighter than JSON, more expressive than Protobuf.

Origin

Created by Doug Cutting (Hadoop creator) in 2009 ; spec v1.0 published 2010.

Example in context

A Kafka topic financial-trades uses Avro to serialize 100K trades/sec — 3x more compact than JSON.

Related terms

• Protobuf — Google competitor.