Protobuf vs JSON - Objective-C/iOS

Question

In Objective-C, making iOS apps, what is the best way to go regarding serialization? Protobuf or JSON?

Answer 1

Protobuf is more time- and space-efficient, JSON is probably more nerve-efficient. As long as there is no reason for the former two (eg because the amount of data to be serialized is small and serialization is not time-critical), I would stick to JSON.

This also makes debugging more fun :-)

Answer 2

I don't know Protobuf, but JSONKit is a very good choice on iOS. See JSON vs. PLIST, the Ultimate Showdown for a performance comparison. JSONKit is widely used and actively developed which makes it a solid choice.