Evans vs Granc

Evans is a free universal gRPC client for manual API inspection and scripting on Linux, macOS, and Windows. Its interactive REPL completes package, service, and RPC names. Stateless CLI mode reads standard input or files and prints JSON-formatted results. When server reflection is enabled, Evans can use that instead of proto files. It supports client-streaming, server-streaming, and bidirectional-streaming RPCs, plus gRPC-Web; TLS is not supported for gRPC-Web. The listed IDL and codec is Protocol Buffers 3, and the compressor is GZIP. For ordinary gRPC connections, the project documents secure TLS connections with the --tls option. Installation options include GitHub Releases, Homebrew, Docker, and Go, with Releases or Homebrew recommended for automatic updates. The documented Go installation requires Go v1.20 or later. The repeat option does not support client-streaming or bidirectional-streaming RPCs. Evans uses the MIT license.

Granc is a free, open-source Linux command-line tool written in Rust for dynamic gRPC calls. It sends JSON payloads without requiring service Protobuf files to be compiled into the client, translating JSON to Protobuf and back at runtime. Using a descriptor, it detects unary, server-streaming, client-streaming, and bidirectional RPCs. Schemas can come from server reflection or a local binary FileDescriptorSet file. Commands list services and describe services, messages, and enums. Granc also creates static Markdown documentation cross-linked between services and types. Requests may include custom headers such as authorization or tracing metadata, and JSON is validated before transmission. The core logic is available as a separate library crate for integration tests, proxies, and automation tools. Installation is documented with cargo install --locked granc. The project has moved to Codeberg, while its GitHub repository was archived on March 9, 2026. It is offered under Apache License 2.0 or MIT. TLS support with configurable roots and client identity is on the roadmap.