Life & fun · alternatives · 2026
24 alternatives to MGen – A toolkit for cross-language object serialization
MGen is a toolkit for serializing objects across different programming languages. It works similarly to Protocol Buffers but supports language-native inheritance, polymorphism, heterogeneous containers, maps, and… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. MGen – A toolkit for cross-language object serialization launched in 2014; newer entries below may have overtaken it.
- 1
Hey HN, I find myself reaching for tools like it-tools.tech or other random sites every now and then during development or debugging. So, I built a toolkit with a sane and simple CLI interface for most of those tools. For the curious and lazy, at the moment, ut has tools for, - Encoding: base64 (encode, decode), url (encode, decode) - Hashing: md5, sha1, sha224, sha256, sha384, sha512 - Data Generation: uuid (v1, v3, v4, v5), token, lorem, random - Text Processing: case (lower, upper, camel, title, constant, header, sentence, snake), pretty-print, diff - Development Tools: calc, json…
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 2KA
2017 · kim.readthedocs.io · its alternatives →
- 3
Slint is a declarative GUI toolkit written primarily in Rust, with API support for multiple programming languages such as C++ and JavaScript. It is designed for desktop and embedded usage. The Slint website has just been redesigned. And we added a new Royalty-Free License option besides GPL and commercial
2023 · slint.dev · its alternatives →
- 4AF
Serialization framework with some interesting numbers: 10-20x faster on nested objects than json/protobuf. Technical approach: compile-time codegen (no reflection), compact binary protocol with meta-packing, little-endian layout optimized for modern CPUs. Unique features that other fast serializers don't have: - Cross-language without IDL files (Rust ↔ Python/Java/Go) - Trait object serialization (Box) - Automatic circular reference handling - Schema evolution without coordination Happy to discuss design trade-offs. Benchmarks:…
Oct 2025 · fory.apache.org · its alternatives →
- 5
🧜♀️ RESTful rendering pipeline for generating sequence and UML diagrams using Mermaid for Markdown docs (Diagrams as a Service) - Schachte/Mermrender
2019 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 6
I've built many interpreters over the years, and Bolt represents my attempt at building the scripting language I always wanted. This is the first public release, 0.1.0! I've felt like most embedded languages have been moving towards safety and typing over years, with things like Python type hints, the explosive popularity of typescript, and even typing in Luau, which powers one of the largest scripted evironments in the world. Bolt attempts to harness this directly in the lagnauge rather than as a preprocessing step, and reap benefits in terms of both safety and performance. I intend to be…
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 7
Bitcoin node written in C. Contribute to chjj/mako development by creating an account on GitHub.
2021 · github.com · its alternatives →
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Over the last few years, I've needed an easy way to quickly serialise and deserialise various network protocols safely and efficiently. Most of the libraries that existed at the time were either quite heavy, had less than stellar performance, or were an abstraction level above what I was looking for. I decided to put together my own class to do the job, starting with an easy, low-overhead way to move bytes in and out of arbitrary buffers. Along the way, it picked up useful bits and pieces, such as buffer structures and allocators that made the byte shuffling faster, often being able to do it…
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 9
Multilingual▲78A command line translation automation tool for developers
2022 · pypi.org · its alternatives →
- 10
Meta programming utilities for C++14. Merged in matt-42/lithium - matt-42/iod
2014 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 11
DevTranslate▲76Automated translation of json, xml, arb & strings files
2022 · devtranslate.app · its alternatives →
- 12
JSON Sharp▲73Tool for lazy developers to convert JSON to C# Objects
2020 · jsontocsharpconverter.web.app · its alternatives →
- 13
Serialization code generator for QUICK struct content comparison - CovenantSQL/HashStablePack
2019 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 14
the JS/Node.JS library for encoding complex and unconventional data structures. Support for BigInts, TypedArrays, null, undefined, and Symbol. Multiple flavors available. - DO-SAY-GO/WeirdJSON
2020 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 15
Easy-to-use JSON Library for Go. Contribute to antonholmquist/jason development by creating an account on GitHub.
2014 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 16
Maki▲84An efficient AI coding agent. Native Rust TUI. Immediate startup, 60 FPS, low memory. Indexes files instead of reading them, chains tools in a sandbox interpreter. Anthropic, OpenAI, Google, Z.AI, OpenRouter, Synthetic, or any OpenAI / Anthropic compatible API.
2022 · maki.sh · its alternatives →
- 17
Readable macroassembler for CLR IL. Contribute to akalenuk/milasm development by creating an account on GitHub.
2023 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 18
Wrote this to learn more about the `chumsky` parser combinator library, rustyline, and the `ariadne` error reporting crate. Such a nice DX combo for writing new languages. Still a work in progress, but I thought I'd share :)
2025 · github.com · its alternatives →
- 19
crates.io serves as a central registry for sharing crates, which are packages or libraries written in Rust that you can use to enhance your projects
2020 · crates.io · its alternatives →
- 20IC
Hi HN, I’m Joan, the developer of Quicklang. I made this app to easily translate and keep in sync all my localization JSON files for my side projects. While searching online for a similar tool, I only found enterprise solutions that do not allow direct editing of JSON files. I used to use ChatGPT to translate the JSON translation file changes before coding Quicklang. However, I realized that ChatGPT only allows you to input short content for translation into another language (even if you provide a .json file), and each time I had to request translations for one language at a time. So, I…
2024 · quicklang.app · its alternatives →
- 21
A one-stop-shop tool for JSON processing on Mac
2022 · tickplant.com · its alternatives →
- 22GC
Hi HN, I’d like to share a project I’ve been working on called GalaxyBrain. It’s a tool for organizing information. Key features: Embeddable dynamic metadata: as you type, metadata is generated in the background. This metadata can be accessed and embedded directly into the page. Light programming concepts built in: you can add custom values (think variables) to any page, then reference those values across different pages to build dynamic relationships. Metadata can be chained together: referencing values on other pages, or by using a formula. Updates to anything flow through the entire…
2025 · its alternatives →
- 23
Millions of developers have used quicktype to generate ten billion lines of typesafe models, serializers, and validators from JSON, JSON Schema, and GraphQL in TypeScript, Python, Swift, C#, Go, Rust, Kotlin, Java, C++, Zod and more. Use it in the browser, from the command line, or give it to your A
2017 · quicktype.io · its alternatives →
- 24
Slint is a declarative GUI toolkit for Rust, C++, JavaScript & Python — build native UIs for embedded, desktop, and web from a single codebase.
2020 · sixtyfps.io · its alternatives →
Also compare
- ut – Rust based CLI utilities for devs and IT alternatives
- Kim – A Python serialization and marshaling framework alternatives
- Slint – A declarative UI toolkit for embedded and desktop alternatives
- Apache Fory Rust – 10-20x faster serialization than JSON/Protobuf alternatives
- Programmatically Generate Diagrams for GitHub Readmes alternatives
- Bolt – A super-fast, statically-typed scripting language written in C alternatives
Ranked by how close each launch is in meaning, then by votes. Prices were read from each product’s own site when checked and can change. Refine with your own description →