Comment by functional_dev

I did not know this before... Google protobuf is not one thing, it is three! Same import, but:

* old C++ extension

* upb

* pure Python

upb parses FAST, but then every access is still C->Python and it slows it down. So for many reads the slow python one can win?

This one helped me to dig deeper - https://vectree.io/c/how-python-protobuf-runtimes-work-pure-...