gRPC for .NET

gRPC is a modern, open source, high-performance remote procedure call (RPC) framework that can run anywhere. gRPC enables client and server applications to communicate transparently, and simplifies the building of connected systems.

gRPC functionality for .NET Core 3.0 or later includes:

• Grpc.AspNetCore – An ASP.NET Core framework for hosting gRPC services. gRPC on ASP.NET Core integrates with standard ASP.NET Core features like logging, dependency injection (DI), authentication and authorization.
• Grpc.Net.Client – A gRPC client for .NET Core that builds upon the familiar HttpClient. The client uses new HTTP/2 functionality in .NET Core.
• Grpc.Net.ClientFactory – gRPC client integration with HttpClientFactory. The client factory allows gRPC clients to be centrally configured and injected into your app with DI.

For more information, see An introduction to gRPC on .NET.

gRPC for .NET is now the recommended implementation!

Starting from May 2021, gRPC for .NET is the recommended implemention of gRPC for C#. The original gRPC for C# implementation (distributed as the Grpc.Core nuget package) is now in maintenance mode and will be deprecated in the future. See blogpost for more details.

To start using gRPC for .NET

The best place to start using gRPC for .NET is the gRPC template that comes with .NET Core 3.0 or later. Use the template to create a gRPC service website and client.

For additional examples of using gRPC in .NET refer to https://github.com/grpc/grpc-dotnet/tree/master/examples.

gRPC NuGet feed

Official versions of gRPC are published to NuGet.org. This is the recommended place for most developers to get gRPC packages.

Nightly versions of gRPC for ASP.NET Core are published to the gRPC NuGet repository at https://grpc.jfrog.io/grpc/api/nuget/v3/grpc-nuget-dev. It is recommended to use a nightly gRPC package if you are using a nightly version of .NET Core, and vice-versa. There may be incompatibilities between .NET Core and gRPC for ASP.NET Core if a newer version of one is used with an older version of the other.

To use the gRPC NuGet repository and get the latest packages from it, place a NuGet.config file with the gRPC repository setup in your solution folder:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration>
    <packageSources>
        <!-- Add this repository to the list of available repositories -->
        <add key="gRPC repository" value="https://grpc.jfrog.io/grpc/api/nuget/v3/grpc-nuget-dev" />
    </packageSources>
</configuration>

Additional instructions for configuring a project to use a custom NuGet repository are available at Changing NuGet configuration settings.

To develop gRPC for ASP.NET Core

Installing .NET Core SDK:

# Run this script before building the project.
./build/get-dotnet.sh or ./build/get-dotnet.ps1

Set up the development environment to use the installed .NET Core SDK:

# Source this script to use the installed .NET Core SDK.
source ./activate.sh or . ./activate.ps1

To launch Visual Studio with the installed SDK:

# activate.sh or activate.ps1 must be sourced first, see previous step
startvs.cmd

To build from the command line:

dotnet build Grpc.DotNet.sln

To run tests from the command line:

dotnet test Grpc.DotNet.sln

Alternative implementation using Code-First (external library)

An alternative way to use gRPC in .NET is to define the Protobuf contracts directly in C# using protobuf-net.

For more information, see the documentation on learn.microsoft.com or the protobuf-net.Grpc website.

To contribute

Contributions are welcome!

General rules for contributing to the gRPC project apply for this repository.