gRPC, a high-performance RPC framework developed by Google, offers several advantages. It uses HTTP/2 for transport which provides benefits like multiplexing and flow control. gRPC supports multiple programming languages, making it versatile. Its use of Protocol Buffers as its interface definition language allows efficient serialization and powerful API design capabilities.
However, gRPC also has some disadvantages. The binary format used by Protocol Buffers makes it hard to debug. Also, being relatively new, it lacks the extensive support available for REST. Lastly, while HTTP/2 brings many improvements, it’s not fully supported in all environments yet, potentially causing compatibility issues.
