IMimaginenore·Sep 14, 2014
So can MsgPack
https://github.com/creationix/msgpack-js
https://github.com/msgpack/msgpack-javascript
In Show HN: Homogenius – Packer/unpacker to reduce the size of JSONcreationix
msgpack-js
JavaScript2012–2014
creationix / msgpack-js
msgpack-js
The msgpack protocol implemented in pure javascript.
2Distinct people
2Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
254GitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
The msgpack protocol implemented in pure javascript.
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use has been verified yet.
What people are saying
No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.
No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.
Also in these discussions
No other repository is repeatedly linked in the same discussions.
This week on Hacker News
Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 1:49:46 PM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by month2 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2012-12-29 14:17:16 UTC to 2014-09-14 21:04:39 UTC.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dec 2012 | 2012-12-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Jan 2013 | 2013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2013-02-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Feb 2013 | 2013-02-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2013-03-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Mar 2013 | 2013-03-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2013-04-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Apr 2013 | 2013-04-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2013-05-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| May 2013 | 2013-05-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2013-06-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Jun 2013 | 2013-06-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2013-07-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Jul 2013 | 2013-07-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2013-08-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Aug 2013 | 2013-08-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2013-09-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Sep 2013 | 2013-09-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2013-10-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Oct 2013 | 2013-10-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2013-11-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Nov 2013 | 2013-11-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2013-12-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Dec 2013 | 2013-12-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Jan 2014 | 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2014-02-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Feb 2014 | 2014-02-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2014-03-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Mar 2014 | 2014-03-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2014-04-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Apr 2014 | 2014-04-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2014-05-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| May 2014 | 2014-05-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2014-06-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Jun 2014 | 2014-06-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2014-07-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Jul 2014 | 2014-07-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2014-08-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Aug 2014 | 2014-08-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2014-09-01 00:00:00 UTC | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Sep 2014 | 2014-09-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2014-10-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
What Hacker News says
2 sourcesLet me weigh in with my experience with msgpack. I'm a long-time nodejs core contributor and have been designing browser libraries for many years. I discovered msgpack almost three years ago and was sad at the lack of javascript support.
Since then I've written and maintain a javascript codec with two optimized versions. One is for [node.js][] and uses node's Buffer methods to do the fast byte to number conversions. The other is for the [browser][] using typed arrays.
I use these libraries in production at various places (the cloud9 IDE backend used them to great effect)
While the native JSON.parse and JSON.stringify is slightly faster than mine with string heavy payloads (and the msgpack is only marginally smaller in that case anyway), when the data is array and number heavy, my codec is much faster than JSON and the data on the wire
Read the rest
is a lot smaller.
Also don't underestimate the value of having a binary data type. In my libraries, I extended the format slightly to also encode undefined (as well as null). I also have a string type and a buffer type. In node.js the buffer type is a instance of a node Buffer. In the browser, the buffer is an ArrayBuffer instance (typed array type). So the practical effect is if you put a JS string in, it's encoded as UTF-8 on the wire and comes out the other end as a JS string. If you put a binary buffer in, it comes out the other end as a buffer.
I've contacted the authors of some of the other codecs and when they extend the format, we agree to extend in compatible ways.
My biggest production use of msgpack was as the transport format of my [smith][] rpc system. In smith, an rpc call is done as an array. The first value is the function to call, and the rest are the args. If you're calling an anonymous function, then the identifier is a number. In this usage, the payload tends to be array and number heavy and thus very fast and efficient.
(Edited to add in missing links)
[node.js]: https://github.com/creationix/msgpack-js
[browser]: https://github.com/creationix/msgpack-js-browser
[smith]: https://github.com/c9/smith