REST vs gRPC for a public API in 2026

The problem I am adding a server to my Flutter app Doshboard (intentionally overengineered for learning - don't do this in your pet projects). Internally the microservices already talk gRPC , but the public API conventionally uses REST, so I put a REST - gRPC transcoder in front of them. Do I need that transcoder though? My users wouldn't mind lower data usage and better streaming, and I wouldn't mind deleting a translation layer - especially that Dart is officially supported . So the question for this post