Client/Server Library Discussion

General Discussions
#1

So I’ve been torn between 3 libraries that all do what I want.

All have their perks, but which do you use and recommend?

KryoNET [Current Winner]

  • Created by Nate
  • Easy to use
  • Quick setup
  • Fast development cycle
  • Great support

Apache MINA

  • Very flexible
  • lower-level
  • Verbose setup
  • Slow development cycle/bug fixes

Netty

  • Fast?
  • Good documentation

PyroNET

#2

I was against KryoNet when i did not know much about network but it is a very good lib for client/server connection

#3

I am using KryoNet for a while and I really like it. At the moment I can’t say anything bad and it’s easy to understand.

#4

Yeah KryoNET looks extremely easy to use. Does it support custom byte decoding? I want to use my own decoder.

#5

I haven’t used the others, but even still I recommend KryoNet. It’s fairly easy to understand and really versatile. I will say you might have to fiddle with some values if you have any issues, and really pay attention to any drop-offs in the ability to receive and process data (ie state changes), but it’s a good tool.

I can’t say about the byte decoding, though.

#6

im not sure i have not went that far in

#7

Yes it does! Just have to extend Serialization. Sweet extremely easy.

What about performance. Have you experienced any major hiccups?

#8

con of kryonet is that it features no P2P

#9

a Hickup i keep getting is it whining about the buffer size being to small now and then, so i adjust the size and then it complains its corrupting the data in deserialized so it can be a little annoying xD

#10

I used MINA and it works well but just figuring out how to send a byte array was very painful.

I haven’t used Kryonet but peoples’ feedback in the forum is very positive and fellow JGO’er Nate is the developer and he’s very astute.

A similarly good API that you might consider is that made by Riven, https://code.google.com/p/pyronet/ which is very fast and low-level.

Some discussion of the API’s and the origin of pyronet and kryonet can be found here:

Cheers,
Keith

#11

@CommanderKeith Yeah I also use MINA. My issue was decoding packets that weren’t completely received yet.

Thanks for the PyroNET suggsetion. I’ll add it to the list.

#12

I’m using Netty + Kryo. Not KryoNetty but the outcome is probably the same. I use kryo to (de)serialize my UDP messages and then send/receive them with Netty.