Building Streaming API with gRPC

Building resilient real-time applications with gRPC streaming in Java: A practical guide

In this article, I’ll guide you through implementing streaming APIs using gRPC in Java. We’ll look at various types of streaming. Then, we’ll create a practical example to show real-time flow.

Introduction

Many developers know about traditional request-response APIs. Yet, modern apps often need real-time data streaming. gRPC provides powerful streaming capabilities that can transform how your services communicate. Whether you’re making chat apps, real-time analytics, or IoT systems, knowing gRPC streaming is key.

Let’s create a weather monitoring service. It will stream temperature updates to clients.

Types of gRPC streaming

Before we start coding, let’s understand the three types of streaming gRPC offers:

• Server streaming: the server sends multiple response to a single client request.
• Client streaming: the client sends many messages to the server.
• Bidirectional streaming: both the server and multiple messages at the same time.

We’ll use server streaming for our weather monitoring service. This method suits…