Info

OdinSerializer is an open-source serializer widely utilized in the Unity community for many popular assets.
The serializer compares very well to many popular serialization libraries in terms of performance and garbage allocation, while providing a superior feature set for use in Unity.

<aside> ⚠️

Odin Serializer does not override basic Unity serialization! You must explicitly specify which fields will be serialized with Odin!

</aside>

Serialization

Odin Serializer does not override basic Unity serialization!
You must explicitly specify fields to be serialized by Odin!
To specify which field will be serialized by Odin, you need to annotate the field with the [OdinSerialize] attribute
To specify which field will not be serialized by Unity, you need to annotate the field with the [NonSerialized] attribute

<aside> ⚠️

Do not serialize one field with both Unity and Odin!

It could lead to subtle errors and duplication of data in your asset.

</aside>

Feature Comparison

	Odin Serializer	Unity JSON	Full Serializer	Binary Formatter	JSON.NET
Open Source	✅	❌	✅	❌	✅
Cross Platform	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
Out-of-the-box Unity Support	✅	✅	✅	❌	❌
Supports Unity structs	✅	✅	✅	❌	❌
Binary Format	✅	❌	❌	✅	❌
JSON Format	✅	✅	✅	❌	✅
Merge-friendly data in Unity objects	✅	❌	❌	❌	❌
Interfaces	✅	❌	✅	✅	✅
Properties	✅	❌	✅	❌	✅
Polymorphism	✅	❌	✅	✅	✅
Generics	✅	❌	✅	✅	✅
Dictionaries	✅	❌	✅	✅	✅
Circular References	✅	❌	✅	✅	✅
Delegates	✅	❌	❌	✅	❌
Multi-dimensional arrays	✅	❌	❌	✅	✅
Extendable	✅	❌	✅	✅	✅
Renaming Members	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
Renaming Types	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
IL Optimized	✅	➖	❌	❌	❌
Supports .NET interfaces	✅	❌	❌	✅	❔
Supports .NET callback attributes	✅	❌	❌	✅	✅

Usage

Inherit from SerializedMonoBehaviour or SerializedScriptableObject

public class YourMonoBehaviour : SerializedMonoBehaviour
  {
      [SerializeField]
      private object SerializedPrivateField;
  
      public object SerializedField;
  
      [OdinSerialize]
      public object SerializedProperty { get; set; }
  }

If this doesn't work for you, for example, because you already have a specific base type you need to inherit from, it is very easy to implement the serialization yourself where you need it, by implementing Unity's ISerializationCallbackReceiver interface and using Odin's UnitySerializationUtility class.

[ShowOdinSerializedPropertiesInInspector]
public class CustomSerializedScriptableObject : ScriptableObject, ISerializationCallbackReceiver
{
    [SerializeField, HideInInspector]
    private SerializationData serializationData;

    void ISerializationCallbackReceiver.OnAfterDeserialize()
    {
		UnitySerializationUtility.DeserializeUnityObject(this, ref serializationData);
    }

    void ISerializationCallbackReceiver.OnBeforeSerialize()
    {
		UnitySerializationUtility.SerializeUnityObject(this, ref serializationData);
    }
}

This is the complete code for a custom Odin-serialized MonoBehaviour:

[ShowOdinSerializedPropertiesInInspector]
public class CustomSerializedMonoBehaviour : MonoBehaviour, ISerializationCallbackReceiver, ISupportsPrefabSerialization
{
	[SerializeField, HideInInspector]
	private SerializationData serializationData;

	SerializationData ISupportsPrefabSerialization.SerializationData
	{
		get => serializationData; 
		set => serializationData = value;
	}

	void ISerializationCallbackReceiver.OnAfterDeserialize()
	{
		UnitySerializationUtility.DeserializeUnityObject(this, ref serializationData);
	}

	void ISerializationCallbackReceiver.OnBeforeSerialize()
	{
		UnitySerializationUtility.SerializeUnityObject(this, ref serializationData);
	}
}