bincode

15.2M downloads in the last 30 days (507.9K/day), up 21% from the previous period.

78.4K crates depend on bincode — it's part of the Rust ecosystem's core infrastructure. Removing it from your dependency tree would be extremely difficult.

bincode has only 1 owner despite 78.4K dependents. This is a bus-factor concern — consider the implications for long-term support.

The API has been stable (1.x) for over 11 years with 73 releases. This level of maturity means you can depend on it without worrying about breaking changes.

bincode has no external dependencies — minimal supply chain risk and fast compile times.

At 4KB, bincode is lightweight. Small crate size correlates with focused, well-scoped functionality.

12% of releases have been yanked. Check version history before pinning.

Notable dependents include smallvec, parking_lot, generic-array, chrono, encoding_rs. When high-quality crates choose bincode, it's a strong quality signal.