How TeaLeaf compares to other data formats.
Feature JSON YAML Protobuf Avro MsgPack CBOR TeaLeaf
Human-readable text Yes Yes No* No No No Yes Compact binary No No Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Schema in text No No External External No No Inline Schema in binary No No No Yes No No Yes No codegen required Yes Yes No Partial Yes Yes Yes Comments No Yes N/A N/A No No Yes Built-in JSON conversion – – No No No No Yes String deduplication No No No No No No Yes Per-section compression No No No Yes No No Yes Null bitmaps No No No Yes No No Yes Random-access reading No No No No No No Yes
*Protobuf TextFormat exists but is rarely used.
Format Small Object 10K Points 1K Users
JSON 1.00x 1.00x 1.00x YAML ~1.1x ~1.1x ~1.1x Protobuf 0.38x 0.65x 0.41x MessagePack 0.35x 0.63x 0.38x CBOR ~0.40x ~0.65x ~0.42x TeaLeaf Binary 3.56x 0.15x 0.47x
Operation JSON (serde) Protobuf MsgPack TeaLeaf
Parse text Fast N/A N/A Moderate Decode binary N/A Fast Fast Moderate Encode text Fast N/A N/A Moderate Encode binary N/A Fast Fast Moderate Random key access O(n) parse O(1) generated N/A O(1) hash
Scenario Why
LLM context / prompts Schema-first reduces token count Config files (human-edited + deployed) Text for editing, binary for deployment Large tabular data 6-7x compression with string dedup Self-describing data exchange No external schema files needed Game save data / asset manifests Compact, nested, self-describing Scientific/sensor data Null bitmaps for sparse data
Scenario Why
Web APIs / REST Universal support Small payloads (< 1 KB) No overhead JavaScript-heavy applications Native parsing Human-only data (no binary needed) Simpler tooling
Scenario Why
RPC / gRPC services First-class streaming support Maximum decode speed Generated code with known offsets Schema evolution at scale Field numbers + backward compat Microservice communication Established ecosystem
Scenario Why
Hadoop / big data pipelines Ecosystem integration Schema registry workflows Built-in evolution Large-scale data lake storage Block compression
Scenario Why
Tiny payloads (< 100 bytes) Minimal overhead Schemaless binary No schema definition needed Drop-in JSON replacement Similar data model
Aspect JSON Protobuf Avro TeaLeaf
Language support Universal 10+ languages 5+ languages Rust, .NET Tooling Extensive Extensive Moderate CLI + libraries Community Massive Large Medium Early Specification maturity RFC 8259 Stable (proto3) Apache spec Beta IDE support Universal Plugins Plugins Planned
TeaLeaf is a young format (v2.0.0-beta.8). It fills a specific niche that existing formats don’t serve well – but it doesn’t aim to replace established formats in their core use cases.