# Avro 10 Hacker News commenters recommended Avro and 2 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 5 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule. **Verdict:** Recommended as a compact, schema-based alternative to XML and JSON for RPC and stored data. Critics note data needs a copy step before use and enforcement needs extra tooling. ## Why people recommend it - Schema-based alternative to XML and JSON (2 comments): "the better tech isn't usually XML but rather things like Avro or Protobuf" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45840348)) "Think JSON with JSON-schema, or Protobuf, or Apache Avro or many others" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45778908)) - Compact RPC and wire format (2 comments): "gRPC and Avro will give you RPC with 5% of the wire bloat that XML does." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46741463)) "many RPCs like zeromsg/nng, gRPC, Avro, Thrift, etc work just fine" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45943238)) - Suggested for schema-tagged payloads (2 comments): "Wouldn't Avro or Parquet be solid choices for something like this" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49509618)) "tag each payload with a schema id (see Avro)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47301458)) - Recommended as a starting point (2 comments): "As another user suggested, Avro is something to look into." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46116934)) "You could have a look at Avro" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46113853)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [Protocol Buffers (protobuf)](https://hackerapproved.com/p/protocol-buffers.md): 77 recommend - [Serde](https://hackerapproved.com/p/serde.md): 22 recommend - [Cap'n Proto](https://hackerapproved.com/p/cap-n-proto.md): 20 recommend - [Protobuf](https://hackerapproved.com/p/protobuf.md): 19 recommend - [FlatBuffers](https://hackerapproved.com/p/flatbuffers.md): 16 recommend ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Avro", https://hackerapproved.com/p/apache-avro/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).