spit/slurp will work since the implementation details are map/record-based and they have readable representations. Depending on the size of the thing you're serializing, and how often you're freezing/thawing, and other concerns like compression, I think nippy just ends up dominating in just about every case (except that spit/slurp are bundled already :) ). That being said, poor folks serialization via spit/slurp is surprisingly useful.