Hessian (Web service protocol)

Hessian is a binary Web service protocol that makes Web services usable without requiring a large framework, and without learning a new set of protocols [weasel words].

Hessian was developed by Caucho Technology, Inc.

The company has released Java, Python and ActionScript for Adobe Flash implementations of Hessian under an open source license (the Apache license).

Third-party implementations in several other languages (C++, C#, JavaScript, Perl, PHP, Ruby, Objective-C, D, and Erlang) are also available as open-source.

Although Hessian is primarily intended for Web services, it can be adapted for TCP traffic by using the HessianInput and HessianOutput classes in Caucho's Java implementation.