gRPC Services in .NET Core
Build high-performance gRPC services with ASP.NET Core — protocol buffers, unary and streaming RPCs, interceptors, and service-to-service communication.
50 min•By Priygop Team•Last updated: Feb 2026
gRPC in .NET Core
- Protocol Buffers: Define service contracts in .proto files — strongly typed, language-neutral, backward/forward compatible. Code generation for C# clients and servers
- Unary RPC: Simple request-response — GetOrder(OrderId) returns Order. Most common pattern, equivalent to REST GET/POST
- Server Streaming: Server sends multiple responses to one request — StreamOrderUpdates returns a stream of OrderStatus updates in real-time
- Client Streaming: Client sends multiple messages, server returns one response — UploadChunks sends file chunks, server returns FileUploadResult
- Bidirectional Streaming: Both client and server send streams simultaneously — real-time chat, multiplayer game state synchronization
- Interceptors: gRPC equivalent of middleware — add logging, authentication, validation, retry logic. Server and client interceptors
gRPC Best Practices
- Use for internal communication only: gRPC is not browser-friendly (no native browser support). Use REST/GraphQL for external APIs, gRPC for service-to-service
- gRPC-Web: Bridge for browser clients — Envoy proxy or ASP.NET Core gRPC-Web middleware. Enables gRPC from Blazor WASM and JavaScript
- Deadlines: Always set deadlines on client calls — prevent hanging requests from consuming server resources indefinitely
- Error Handling: Use gRPC status codes (OK, NotFound, InvalidArgument, Internal) — include detailed error messages in RpcException
- Health Checks: Implement gRPC health checking protocol — standard /grpc.health.v1.Health/Check for Kubernetes and load balancer integration
- Load Balancing: Client-side load balancing with service discovery — Consul, Kubernetes DNS. gRPC reuses connections so server-side LB needs L7 awareness