Thrift::XS provides faster versions of Thrift::BinaryProtocol and Thrift::MemoryBuffer. Thrift compact protocol support is also available, just replace Thrift::XS::BinaryProtocol with Thrift::XS::CompactProtocol. To use, simply replace your Thrift initialization code with the appropriate Thrift::XS version. WWW: http://search.cpan.org/dist/Thrift-XS/