[Feature]: grpc support

[nicolas-cyfix]

Is there an existing issue for this?

• I have searched the existing issues

Summary

I have some backend services that are accessible only by gRPC. I was wondering if it would be complicated to have such integration? (I saw that reTool supports gRPC also ;-) )

Why should this be worked on?

In my opinion, gRPC is more and more used (for example kubernetes begins to support natively it for health check https://kubernetes.io/blog/2022/05/13/grpc-probes-now-in-beta/), and gRPC is ~ 10x more efficient that REST

Front conversations

[rohan-arthur]

@nicolas-cyfix thank you for submitting this requirement. Now gRPC integration would be powerful indeed!

We will look into it, but since we have a few higher priority items on the roadmap, this may be a few months in coming.

[nicolas-cyfix]

If I have time, is there a way/documentation I can check to see if I can contribute (but I am not a good Java developer)

[javiercornejo]

+1

Hi @nicolas-cyfix I am interested aswell in having this feature. I am not very updated about how this project code works but I think maybe we can contribute adding this data source somehow, I think most complicated part could be supporting grpc streams updates.

[cwhight]

• 1 - just adding my voice to say this would be really useful if grpc support were added

[d0x7]

+1 Would also love to see support for gRPC. For my hobby project Retool is too expensive, but not using gRPC is not viable in my situation.

[emre-carbon]

Hi @rohan-arthur and @Nikhil-Nandagopal,

We've developed an internal gRPC plugin which we believe could be a valuable addition to the open-source community. We're excited to contribute back to this great project, and we will prepare our gRPC plugin to be open-source ready if you welcome this contribution.

Here's a small list of requirements we'll cover:

• User should be able to enter service url, or a file path on the server and a mapping of package prefixes with service url.
• The plugin should be able to reach the service with a reflection call.
  • During datasource creation, the user should be able to attach a user token to the reflection call. Similar to the Test Datasource button in other plugins.
• The plugin should be able to associate the service and method descriptors with the service URL
• Users should be able to attach access tokens or extra metadata information to the service call.
  • Support only UNARY, and SERVER_STREAMING calls.

[rohan-arthur]

hi @emre-carbon ,
We are so excited to hear that you want to contribute the gRPC plugin! This is wonderful news indeed, and we'd love to see it in action. Would it be possible to attach a video explaining the flow? (You can make nice videos with loom.com)

Thanks!
Rohan

[gurel]

We have developed exactly the same specs. If anyone wants to use it feel free. This is just missing the advanced connection options like client certificates.

You just need to build it locally and add the jar file to the docker container and register the plugin in mongo.

https://github.com/gurel/appsmith/tree/grpc/app/server/appsmith-plugins/grpcPlugin

[DonDebonair]

Lack of gRPC support is currently preventing me from replacing ReTool with AppSmit, which otherwise seems like a superior product for its pricing. Would love to switch, so please make this happen!

[andi-gun]

Hi, are there any updates regarding grpc support? This is currently a dealbreaker for us