Thrift is a very similar system for message serialization to Protobuf.<p>The thriftpy project implements a pure Python parser for thrift files that dynamically generates Python modules <i>without</i> a build&#x2F;codegen step. Also has Py2, Py3, and PyPy support.<p>Awesome library for this sort of thing. Includes a Cython impl of Thrift parsing&#x2F;serialization, too:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;eleme&#x2F;thriftpy" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;eleme&#x2F;thriftpy</a>