Feature

Feature	FlatBuffers	Protobuf	Molecule
Schema	Yes	Yes	Yes
Zero copy	Yes	No	Yes
Random access*	Yes	No	Yes
Verifier	Opt	Yes	Opt
Byte consistency*	No	No	Yes

Random access: You can read just one field of a message without parsing the whole thing.

Byte consistency: The same data can be represented in multiple different byte sequences or not, although usually FlatBuffers or Protobuf serializer will produce the same output from the same data, it is not a formal guarantee, so you can't just glance at two outputs (or their hashes) and conclude "if the bytes are the same the data is the same, otherwise the data is different".

Benchmark

Serialize Header

Serialize Block

Deserialize Header

Deserialize Block

Data Size

	FlatBuffers	Protobuf	Molecule
Header	352	253	304
Block	268016	247356	267120