A WebSocket is a computer communications protocol that provides full-duplex communication channels over a single TCP connection. It enables real-time, event-driven communication between a client and a server, allowing for bi-directional communication, meaning that both the client and the server can send data to each other. The WebSocket protocol was standardized by the IETF as RFC 6455 in 2011.
The WebSocket protocol allows for lower overhead than half-duplex alternatives such as HTTP polling, facilitating real-time data transfer from and to the server. This is made possible by providing a standardized way for the server to send content to the client without being first requested by the client, and allowing messages to be passed back and forth while keeping the connection open.
WebSocket is bidirectional, a full-duplex protocol that is used in the same scenario of client-server communication, unlike HTTP it starts from ws:// or wss:// . It is a stateful protocol, which means the connection between client and server will keep alive until it is terminated by either party (client or server) . WebSocket is used mainly in the client-server communication channel and is capable of supporting continual data transmission, making it ideal for real-time application development.
Some examples of WebSocket usage include SignalR, Caddy, ws, WebSocket King, PHP WebSocket Server, Channels, and Flask-SocketIO. However, WebSocket can strain server resources when dealing with many concurrent connections, so proper load balancing and resource management techniques must be implemented to ensure scalability.
