RPC vs REST: Choosing the Right Architecture for Networked Applications

RPC vs REST, a protocol choice

Lavkesh Dwivedi analyzes the architectural trade-offs between Remote Procedure Call (RPC) and Representational State Transfer (REST). In one internal microservices migration, switching to gRPC reduced latency by 30% and increased throughput by 25%.

Why This Matters

While theoretical models suggest a binary choice, technical reality requires balancing protocol flexibility against operational scalability. The ideal of high-performance RPC is often countered by the cost of managing server state and affinity, whereas the statelessness of REST simplifies scaling across CDNs and load balancers but forces complex problems into rigid CRUD semantics.

Key Insights

• Performance Gains: gRPC implementation resulted in 30% lower latency and 25% higher throughput compared to REST (Dwivedi, 2026).
• Resource-Oriented Design: REST treats APIs as collections of nouns accessed via standard HTTP verbs like GET, POST, PUT, and DELETE.
• Protocol Flexibility: RPC supports various underlying protocols including TCP, UDP, and HTTP to allow for custom performance optimizations.

Practical Applications

• Internal Microservices: Use gRPC for high-frequency method calls to achieve lower overhead; avoid ignoring server state management to prevent scaling complications.
• Public APIs: Use REST for external accessibility to leverage existing HTTP infrastructure like CDNs; avoid relying solely on default behavior without implementing multi-layer caching.

References:

• https://dev.to/lavkeshdwivedi/rpc-vs-rest-a-protocol-choice-4969