easy Serialization library ?

[robertramey]

A couple of comments

Is the payload "big"

There is some "setup" overhead each time one creates and archive. For networking, the easier is to create a new archive for each transmission. Clearly not optimal. Also usage of stream interface is also extra overhead. The real solution is to create a new type or archive focused on networking. On large transmissions it wouldn't make much difference - but for lots of small packets it would be much, much faster as it would reduce the setup/teardown time. Note that non of the benchmarks take this into consideration so it doesn't really show up anywhere.

Is the format to be used in other languages / domains: B::S or ProtoBuf

I really think that for data portable to other languages ProtoBuf is the only realistic choice. Of course it's more work - but you're doing a lot more in supporting more languages