Relationship to postcard

Poststation is part of the greater postcard family, and builds on top of it. Namely:

postcard is the ENCODING format

postcard defines how we turn data types into bytes and back again. You can use postcard anywhere you want to serialize/deserialize data. It serves as the "base layer" of the stack.

postcard is an Open Source library (MIT and Apache 2.0 licensed), and has a stable and public specification.

postcard-rpc is the WIRE PROTOCOL

postcard-rpc defines how two devices communicate with each other. You can use postcard-rpc anywhere you want two devices to communicate in a client/server role. postcard-rpc requires the use of postcard as the encoding format.

postcard-rpc is an Open Source library (MIT and Apache 2.0 licensed), and will have a stable and public specification in the near future (planned for 2025).

Poststation is a DEVELOPER TOOL

Poststation manages connections to multiple devices, historical data, and connectors to other APIs and services. Poststation uses postcard as the encoding format, and postcard-rpc as the wire protocol.

Poststation is a paid, closed source tool. It aims to be a handy toolkit, to save developer time from building integrations and tooling on top of postcard or postcard-rpc from scratch.