CODEWITHSUNDEEP
websocket
Sadan A.
Sadan A.

Reputation: 1107

Should I use web sockets to pull data from server or just a flag and use that flag to send API request for data?

I am working on a project which is basically a Customer Feedback Analysis Dashboard. There are few graphs on the dashboard and data for each graph is fetched from the server through API requests.

Right now the dashboard is updated every time the page is refreshed. I want it to be updated immediately when there is a new feedback in the system. I am confused, whether I use websockets to send data for each graph or just a flag and use that flag to fetch data through API requests.

Like, facebook/twitter does. They tell you about new posts/tweets and when you click that button your feed/wall gets updated.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 4041

Answers (1)

jfriend00
jfriend00

Reputation: 708036

If you want to "push" data from server to client and you want that data to show up in a timely fashion (e.g. within 10-20 seconds of when it was available on the server), then you will want to implement some sort of "push" solution where the server can efficiently push data to the client whenever there is new data to send.

There are several possible approaches:

  1. webSockets
  2. socket.io
  3. Server-sent events
  4. Mobile platform-specific push (Android and iOS)

For a general purpose solution that works within a browser, you will want to use one of the first three. socket.io is built on top of webSockets (it just adds more features) so architecturally, they are similar.

Server-sent events are fairly new (modern browsers only) and are only for one way communication (from server to client). webSockets can be used for communication either way.

I'd personally recommend socket.io because of the features it offers (such as automatic client reconnection) and a simplified messaging layer. You can see the feature difference between socket.io and webSockets here. With socket.io, the client makes a connection to the server when the web page is loaded and that connection is persistent. After the connection is established, then either client or server can send messages to the other at any time in a very efficient manner.

Other useful references:

Push notification | is websocket mandatory?

websocket vs rest API for real time data?

Why to use websocket and what is the advantage of using it?

What are the pitfalls of using Websockets in place of RESTful HTTP?

Ajax vs Socket.io

Upvotes: 3

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