gRPC supports four types of streaming: unary, server-side, client-side, and bidirectional. Unary is the simplest form where a single request-response pair is exchanged between client and server. In server-side streaming, the client sends a single request and gets multiple responses from the server. Client-side streaming involves sending multiple requests to the server and receiving a single response. Bidirectional streaming allows both parties to send multiple messages independently.
Streaming in gRPC is implemented using HTTP/2 as the transport protocol. This enables multiplexing, allowing multiple streams on a single TCP connection, reducing overhead. Each message sent over the stream is prefixed with a header containing its length, enabling the receiver to know when a complete message has been received.