HTML5 Websockets API Introduction and Tools

Written by mozilla | Published 2020/05/18
Tech Story Tags: hackernoon-top-story | tutorial | website-development | web-development | mozilla | mdn-documentation | html5 | websockets

TLDR HTML5 Websockets API is an advanced technology that makes it possible to open a two-way interactive communication session between the user's browser and a server. With this API, you can send messages to a server and receive event-driven responses without having to poll the server for a reply. While a WebSocket connection is functionally somewhat similar to standard Unix-style sockets, they are not related. The WebSocket API is a free software community founded in 1998 by members of Netscape and Mozilla.via the TL;DR App

The WebSocket API is an advanced technology that makes it possible to open a two-way interactive communication session between the user's browser and a server. With this API, you can send messages to a server and receive event-driven responses without having to poll the server for a reply.
Note: While a WebSocket connection is functionally somewhat similar to standard Unix-style sockets, they are not related.

Interfaces

The primary interface for connecting to a WebSocket server and then sending and receiving data on the connection.
The event sent by the WebSocket object when the connection closes.
The event sent by the WebSocket object when a message is received from the server.

Guides

Tools

  • HumbleNet: A cross-platform networking library that works in the browser. It consists of a C wrapper around WebSockets and WebRTC that abstracts awaycross-browser differences, facilitating the creation of multi-user networking functionality for games and other apps.
  • µWebSockets: Highly scalable WebSocket server and client implementation for C++11 and Node.js.
  • ClusterWS:  Lightweight, fast and powerful framework for building scalable WebSocket applications in Node.js.
  • CWS: Fast C++ WebSocket implementation for Node.js (uWebSockets v0.14 fork)
  • Socket.IO: A long polling/WebSocket based third party transfer protocol for Node.js.
  • SocketCluster: A pub/sub WebSocket framework for Node.js with a focus on scalability.
  • WebSocket-Node: A WebSocket server API implementation for Node.js.
  • Total.js: Web application framework for Node.js (Example: WebSocket chat)
  • Faye: A WebSocket (two-ways connections) and EventSource (one-way connections) for Node.js Server and Client.
  • SignalR: SignalR will use WebSockets under the covers when it's available, and
    gracefully fallback to other techniques and technologies when it isn't, while your application code stays the same.
  • Caddy: A web server capable of proxying arbitrary commands (stdin/stdout) as a websocket.
  • ws: a popular WebSocket client & server library for Node.js.
  • jsonrpc-bidirectional: Asynchronous RPC which, on a single connection, may have functions exported on the server and, and the same time, on the client (client may call server, server may also call client).
  • cowboy: Cowboy is a small, fast and modern HTTP server for Erlang/OTP with WebSocket support.

Related Topics

Specifications

Browser compatibility

See also

Credits


Written by mozilla | Mozilla (stylized as moz://a) is a free software community founded in 1998 by members of Netscape.
Published by HackerNoon on 2020/05/18