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Dev tools · alternatives · 2026

24 alternatives to Skir – like Protocol Buffer but better

Why I built Skir: https://medium.com/@gepheum/i-spent-15-years-with-protobuf-t... Quick start: npx skir init All the config lives in one YML file. Website: https://skir.build GitHub: https://github.com/gepheum/skir Would love feedback especially from teams running mixed-language stacks.

Skir is a data serialization tool designed as an alternative to Protocol Buffers for teams working across multiple programming languages. It centralizes all configuration in a single YAML file and can be initialized… Below are 24 products that do a similar job, ranked by how close each is in meaning and then by launch-day votes. Prices are shown for the 1 we have checked on their own sites, 1 of them free or with a free tier.

  1. 1
    SKI▲577

    SKI is a on-device voice coding application, which can be used with any agents that supports skill, such as Claude Code, Codex or Hermes. It transcribes your voice (which you can optionally review and edit) and send it to the connected agent. The agent then completes the task, and uses the skill to talk about the updates of the project or a summary or a query using voice. This runs completely on-device. Free. No subscription. Available on both Mac (notch and pill) and Windows (pill widget) It can also be sent to meetings with the intelligence of the connected project to participate actively…

    Jul 2026 · heyski.io · its alternatives →

  2. 2
    Skim▲141

    I built Skim because I was super dissatisfied with all existing Windows clients. I mean, it's not a rocket science, there should be some lightweight modern solution, isn't it? So I decided to create a client that just, you know, MAKES SENSE and has design younger than dinosaurs. Key points: * Obsessed with installer size: it should be under 5Mb. * BYOK AI. Cowriter, agentic search, summarization and other AI stuff is powered by your own key for Anthropic/Openrouter, or you can connect your own OpenAI-compatible server (including local) * No bloat. It should be as contextual as possible:…

    Jul 2026 · skim-tech.com · its alternatives →

  3. 3

    A probabilistic data structure service and storage - skizzehq/skizze

    2016 · github.com · its alternatives →

  4. 4

    A multi-threaded, GPU-powered, 2D vector graphics environment for Node.js - samizdatco/skia-canvas

    2020 · github.com · its alternatives →

  5. 5

    protoCURL is cURL for Protobuf: The command-line tool for interacting with Protobuf over HTTP REST endpoints using human-readable text formats - qaware/protocurl

    2023 · github.com · its alternatives →

  6. 6CN
  7. 7

    A syntax-highlighting pager for git, diff, grep, rg --json, and blame output - dandavison/delta

    2020 · github.com · its alternatives →

  8. 8

    A Google Protocol Buffers (Protobuf) payload decoder/analyzer - sandermvanvliet/ProtobufDecoder

    2021 · github.com · its alternatives →

  9. 9

    I built LocalGPT over 4 nights as a Rust reimagining of the OpenClaw assistant pattern (markdown-based persistent memory, autonomous heartbeat tasks, skills system). It compiles to a single ~27MB binary — no Node.js, Docker, or Python required. Key features: - Persistent memory via markdown files (MEMORY, HEARTBEAT, SOUL markdown files) — compatible with OpenClaw's format - Full-text search (SQLite FTS5) + semantic search (local embeddings, no API key needed) - Autonomous heartbeat runner that checks tasks on a configurable interval - CLI + web interface + desktop GUI - Multi-provider:…

    Feb 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

  10. 10

    Godot-based Rust multi-PTY emulator desktop application - godot-pty/gpty

    Sep 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

  11. 11

    An implementation of a dynamic programming language in Rust. Includes: Parser/Compiler, REPL, Virtual Machine, Bytecode Disassembler This started out as a learning project to teach myself Rust. It has grown into a decently substantial piece of software and I've learned quite a bit in the process! Some neat things: + A garbage collector that can store dynamically sized types without any double-indirection (i.e. I have my own Box implementation with manual alloc/dealloc) + The smart pointer used to reference GCed data is a thin pointer. The ptr metadata needed for DSTs is stored in…

    2022 · github.com · its alternatives →

  12. 12

    A high-performance observability data pipeline. Contribute to vectordotdev/vector development by creating an account on GitHub.

    2019 · github.com · its alternatives →

  13. 13AF

    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 →

  14. 14

    Hey HN, this is Will and David from Fortress (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41426998). We use a lot of async Rust internally, and created this library out of a need for an async-aware concurrent hashmap since there weren’t many available in the Rust ecosystem. Whirlwind is a sharded HashMap with a fully asynchronous API. Just as dashmap is a replacement for std::sync::RwLock, whirlwind aims to be a replacement for tokio::sync::RwLock. It has a similar design and performance characteristics to dashmap, but seems to perform better in read-heavy workloads with tokio's…

    2024 · github.com · its alternatives →

  15. 15

    Expose local http, tcp or websocket connections to the public internet - amalshaji/portr

    2024 · github.com · its alternatives →

  16. 16

    An ultra-fast, single-binary MCP server written in Rust as a lightweight alternative to Node.js/Python. - StamManif/mcp-stama

    Aug 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

  17. 17

    Hi HN, I built Ayder — a single-binary, HTTP-native durable event log written in C. The wedge is simple: curl is the client (no JVM, no ZooKeeper, no thick client libs). There’s a 2-minute demo that starts with an unclean SIGKILL, then restarts and verifies offsets + data are still there. Numbers (3-node Raft, real network, sync-majority writes, 64B payload): ~50K msg/s sustained (wrk2 @ 50K req/s), client P99 ~3.46ms. Crash recovery after SIGKILL is ~40–50s with ~8M offsets. Repo link has the video, benchmarks, and quick start. I’m looking for a few early design partners (any…

    Jan 2026 · github.com · its alternatives →

  18. 18PD

    PicoMQ is a Rust server for Durable Streams, built on Object Store. Cheap, URL-addressable, granular streams (create/append/read/long-poll/SSE), with Pico Protocol or Durable Streams Protocol as the facade. S3Stream is the stream storage primitive, used in AutoMQ, shipped as a Rust library. Coordination is a command log in Postgres.

    Aug 2026 · picomq.com · its alternatives →

  19. 19

    Ditch Burp Suite’s bloat for zxc, a Rust-built, terminal-based proxy that uses tmux and Vim to intercept HTTP/S and WebSocket traffic. It captures requests for debugging, security testing, or tweaking—fast and lean. # Key Features - Disk Wizardry: Stashes massive datasets on disk-100k+ entries without breaking a sweat. - Addons: Boost your workflow with default support for ffuf and sqlmap, or craft your own addons for extra fun. - Buffer Tweaks: Edit variables in a popup (e.g., b:host, b:scheme) in Interceptor/Repeater to twist requests. - Config Control: TOML files for global…

    2025 · github.com · its alternatives →

  20. 20SA

    * https://sparser.io * https://github.com/Unibeautify/sparser This is my attempt at creating a universal language parser. It attempts to solve a couple of problems: * Support multiple languages * Recursively extend support to languages embedded within other languages * Output a uniform format for all supported languages This is a personal project so any feedback would be helpful. Something interesting I found after I built it is that this parser is not as fast to write output as many other JavaScript parsers, but its output is much faster to read from due to the…

    2019 · its alternatives →

  21. 21

    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 →

  22. 22

    :man: a simple, git diffable JSON database on yer filesystem. By the power of NodeJS - DO-SAY-GO/sirdb

    2020 · github.com · its alternatives →

  23. 23SA
  24. 24

    [I'm the author] Spall is a web-accessible profiler that I made to help my web-dev friends load gigabyte+ JSON traces without lunch-break-long load times. Recently, Spall got experimental support for auto-tracing with binary traces (along with an in-progress native-port, to give it more memory headroom), which was used to help track down and fix some hard-to-spot lock contention issues in the Odin-language compiler. I demoed it at the Handmade Seattle conference in October, https://guide.handmade-seattle.com/c/2022/spall/, with a head-to-head against Perfetto,…

    2023 · gravitymoth.com · its alternatives →

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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 →