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Universal serialization for Zig: JSON, Yaml, XML, MessagePack, TOML, CSV and more from a single API. msgpack.org[Zig]

63 starsZig

Serde.zig - Format-agnostic serialization for Zig using comptime

by owen-orlov·Mar 6, 2026·3 points·0 comments

AI Analysis

●●●BangerWizardryNiche GemShip It

Unified serialization API for six formats without codegen or macros using Zig comptime.

Strengths
  • Comptime reflection eliminates runtime overhead and code generation boilerplate entirely.
  • Single API across six production formats—swap JSON for MessagePack with one module change.
  • Handles complex types cleanly: tagged unions, nested structs, pointers, HashMaps, tuples.
Weaknesses
  • Zig ecosystem is tiny; adoption depends entirely on language growth beyond systems programming.
  • No benchmarks, error handling docs, or comparison to hand-rolled serializers in real projects.
Target Audience

Zig developers building systems requiring multi-format data serialization.

Similar To

serde (Rust) · protobuf · msgpack-c

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