Jelly: a fast and convenient RDF serialization format

Piotr Sowiński, Karolina Bogacka, Anastasiya Danilenka, Nikita Kozlov

Keywords: RDF, Serialization format, RDF stream processing, Knowledge graphs, Semantic Web data formats

Abstract: Existing RDF serialization formats such as Turtle, N-Triples, and JSON-LD are widely used for communication and storage in knowledge graph and Semantic Web applications. However, they suffer from limitations in performance, compression ratio, and lack of native support for RDF streams. To address these shortcomings, we introduce Jelly, a fast and convenient binary serialization format for RDF data that supports both batch and streaming use cases. Jelly is designed to maximize serialization throughput, reduce file size with lightweight streaming compression, and minimize compute resource usage. Built on Protocol Buffers, Jelly is easy to integrate with modern programming languages and RDF libraries. To maximize reusability, Jelly has an open protocol specification, open-source implementations in Java and Python integrated with popular RDF libraries, and a versatile command-line tool. To illustrate its usefulness, we outline concrete use cases where Jelly can provide tangible benefits. By combining practical usability with state-of-the-art efficiency, Jelly is an important contribution to the Semantic Web tool stack.

Submission Type: Software talk

Submission Number: 6