OdinSerializer

Fast, robust, powerful and extendible.NET serializer built for Unity

OdinSerializer is an open-source version of the custom serializer built for and used by

Odin - Inspector & Serializer

Used in hundreds of games and supported by Asset Store developers such as

Performance charts and comparisons

OdinSerializer compares very well to many popular serialization libraries in terms of performance and garbage allocation, while providing a superior feature-set for use in Unity.

The performance graphs in this section are profiled with OdinSerializer's binary format.

| | Odin Serializer | Unity JSON | Full Serializer | Binary Formatter | JSON.NET |Protobuf-net |

|---------------------------------------|------------------|------------------|------------------|------------------|------------------|------------------|

|Open Source |:heavy_check_mark:|:x:|:heavy_check_mark:|:x: |:heavy_check_mark:|:heavy_check_mark:|

|Cross Platform |:heavy_check_mark:|:heavy_check_mark:|:heavy_check_mark:|:heavy_check_mark:|:heavy_check_mark:|:heavy_check_mark:

|Out of the box Unity Support |:heavy_check_mark:|:heavy_check_mark:|:heavy_check_mark:|:x: |:x: |:x:

|Supports Unity structs |:heavy_check_mark:|:heavy_check_mark:|:heavy_check_mark:|:x: |:x: |:x:

|Binary Formatter |:heavy_check_mark:|:x: |:x: |:heavy_check_mark:|:x: |:heavy_check_mark:

|Json Formatter |:heavy_check_mark:|:heavy_check_mark:|:heavy_check_mark:|:x: |:heavy_check_mark:|:x:

|Merge-friendly data in Unity objects |:heavy_check_mark:|:x: |:x: |:x: |:x: |:x:

|Interfaces |:heavy_check_mark:|:x: |:heavy_check_mark:|:heavy_check_mark:|:heavy_check_mark:|:heavy_check_mark:

|Properties |:heavy_check_mark:|:x: |:heavy_check_mark:|:x: |:heavy_check_mark:|:heavy_check_mark:

|Polymorphism |:heavy_check_mark:|:x: |:heavy_check_mark:|:heavy_check_mark:|:heavy_check_mark:|:heavy_check_mark:

|Generics |:heavy_check_mark:|:x: |:heavy_check_mark:|:heavy_check_mark:|:heavy_check_mark:|:heavy_check_mark:

|Dictionaries |:heavy_check_mark:|:x: |:heavy_check_mark:|:heavy_check_mark:|:heavy_check_mark:|:heavy_check_mark:

|Circular References |:heavy_check_mark:|:x: |:heavy_check_mark:|:heavy_check_mark:|:heavy_check_mark:|:heavy_check_mark:

|Delegates |:heavy_check_mark:|:x: |:x: |:heavy_check_mark:|:x: |:x:

|Multi-dimensional arrays |:heavy_check_mark:|:x: |:x: |:heavy_check_mark:|:heavy_check_mark:|:x:

|Extendable |:heavy_check_mark:|:x: |:heavy_check_mark:|:heavy_check_mark:|:heavy_check_mark:|:heavy_check_mark:

|Renaming Members |:heavy_check_mark:|:heavy_check_mark:|:heavy_check_mark:|:heavy_check_mark:|:heavy_check_mark:|:heavy_check_mark:

|Renaming Types |:heavy_check_mark:|:heavy_check_mark:|:heavy_check_mark:|:heavy_check_mark:|:heavy_check_mark:|:heavy_check_mark:

|IL Optimized |:heavy_check_mark:|- |:x: |:x: |:x: |-

|Supports.NET interfaces |:heavy_check_mark:|:x: |:x: |:heavy_check_mark:|? |:x:

|Supports.NET callback attributes |:heavy_check_mark:|:x: |:x: |:heavy_check_mark:|:heavy_check_mark:|:heavy_check_mark:

Serialization of a simple object with no polymorphism

Serialization of a complex object with lots of polymorphism

*Unity JsonUtility has been excluded from this benchmark because it supports neither polymorphism or dictionaries

Serialization of various large arrays and lists

Garbage allocation of the 3 tests above

How to get started

There are many different use cases for OdinSerializer. If you just need a serialization library to use in your own private project, we can recommend that you simply use it out of the box. If you would like to make your own tweaks and builds, or if you intend to include OdinSerializer in a package that you are distributing, you would be better served by forking the repository.

Using OdinSerializer out of the box

To use OdinSerializer as-is, simply head to the download page on our website to download the latest commit as a.unitypackage file, and import the package into your Unity project. OdinSerializer will then be in your project, ready to use.

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