Real-Time Web Technologies Guide

Note: This page is a work in progress. I plan to update it new technologies as I find them and increase the information on each as I find the time. If you know of a technology that should be included in this guide then please raise a pull request. If you have any questions please drop me an email me

As above, you can contribute to the list by making a pull request to the Realtime Web Technologies Guide github repo.

Hosted Realtime Services
Self Hosted Realtime Services
WebSocket Client Libraries

Hosted Realtime Services

General Messaging & PubSub

Ably

Ably is a platform that makes it easy for you add realtime messaging and streaming data to your application. The global service is uniquely able to offer solutions to the most difficult aspects of messaging at scale such as limitless scale, connection state recovery, guaranteed message delivery, client library “intelligence” to work around transient network problems. The Ably service operates in more than 24 data centres globally offering the lowest latencies globally.

See the complete feature set.

WebSocket
HTTP Fallback
XHR streaming
HTTP polling
JSONP
REST
Presence
Basic and Token based authentication
Symmetric encryption
Binary encoded data
Push notifications
WebHooks
Android
Cordova
Go
iOS
Java Realtime
JavaScript
Mono
.NET
Node.JS
PHP
Python
Ruby
Xamarin

Fanout

Docs
Pricing

Build and scale realtime APIs. Fanout’s push CDN makes it easy. Add live updates to your websites and web services using REST, HTTP streaming, WebSockets, Webhooks, and XMPP

For front-end applications, Fanout’s JavaScript library receives realtime JSON notifications with just a few lines of code. Integration is quick and simple.

For services and APIs, you can add realtime functionality with minimal modification. By acting as a reverse proxy, Fanout’s global cloud invisibly bridges realtime clients with the services you’ve already built.

WebHooks
PubSub
XMPP
REST
WebSockets
HTTP Streaming
HTTP Long-Polling
REST

Hydna

A scalable real-time platform

Hydna is a hosted backend into which you can send data and have it instantly appear on other devices.

Instantly move data across platforms, technologies, and devices

Hydna is ideal for building dashboards, activity streams, notification- and chat systems, real-time collaboration, live statistics, remote controls, multiplayer games, and more.

Real-Time messaging
Binary
WebSockets
Comet
Flash
HTTP/REST
Behaviors
Routing
Authentication
Room partitioning
Presence
.NET
Erlang
Java
Node.js
Objective-C
PHP
Python
Ruby
Multiplexing

PubNub

Pubnub is the fastest cloud-hosted realtime messaging system for web and mobile apps.

HTTP
BOSH
Fallback-support
Real-Time Client Push
Real-Time messaging
Real-Time data
Coldfusion
.NET
Erlang
Google App Engine (GAE)
Java
JavaScript
Lua-Corona
node.js
Objective-C
Perl
PHP
Python
Ruby
Silverlight
Titaniumf
REST API
PubSub

Pusher

Pusher is a hosted API for quickly, easily and securely adding scalable realtime functionality to web and mobile apps.

WebSockets
HTTP fallback
Flash socket fallback
Real-Time Client Push
Real-Time messaging
Real-Time Data
in-built security
HTML5
JavaScript
Objective-C
Ruby
PHP
node.js
.NET
Silverlight
ActionScript
Google App Engine (GAE)
Erlang
Perl
Coldfusion
Python
Groovy
Java
REST API
Presence
PubSub

Realtime.co

The Realtime Messaging Framework is a cloud-hosted messaging system for websites and mobile apps that require constant content updates in just a few milliseconds, enabling any application to interact with millions of connected users in a fast and secure way.

Websockets
Fallback-support (streaming and polling)
Guaranteed message delivery with “at-least-once” contract
Real-Time Client Push
Real-Time messaging
Real-Time data
Mobile Push Notifications for iOS and Android (APNS and FCM)
Webhooks
.NET
Java / Android
JavaScript
Lua
iOS
Titanium Appcelerator
Windows Phone
Node.js
Objective-C
PHP
Python
C/C++
Ruby
Silverlight
ActionScript
React Native
Xamarin
Unity
Ionic/Cordova/PhoneGap
Go
Tessel (IoT)
REST API
Pub/Sub
Presence
built-in security (authentication and authorization)
multiplexing (through the use of channels)

Reappt by Push Technology

Reappt is the only enterprise-class Realtime Messaging service delivered via the cloud to power business-critical internet apps. Reappt helps you develop reactive applications faster with lower costs and reduced risks. It is designed for a broad set of internet, mobile, and IoT developers – and provides a complete set of tools, including APIs and client libraries.

Streamdata.io

Streamdata.io is a real-time cache proxy allowing you to poll JSON REST APIs and push updates to clients. But wait, there is more: Streamdata.io keeps a history of modifications that occur on the data between two pollings! This way, streamdata.io is able to give you the list of modifications which happened since last time you fetched the data.

Server-Sent Events
JSON Patch
Fallback-support
REST
PubSub
Proxy
JavaScript
iOS
Java
Android

Tambur.io

Tambur.io provides your business with a simple messaging API to build scalable realtime web and mobile apps.

Realtime messaging
HTTP/REST
SSL
Websockets
Comet
Streams
Modes
Broadcast
Unicast
Authcast
Presence
Direct Messaging
PHP
Ruby
Java
.Net
Erlang
JavaScript

WebSync on-demand (by FrozenMountain)

Comet
Real-Time Client Push
Real-Time messaging
Real-Time data

Data Synchronisation, Persistence, Full Stack

CloudBoost

Open Source and hosted
Data Storage
Search
Real-Time
Relations
Files
Geospatial
Authentication
Queues

Convergence

Convergence is the world’s first API specifically designed for realtime collaborative applications. It was created as a one-stop shop for realtime collaborative application development, with a rich JSON-inspired data model API, guaranteed conflict resolution, and first-class APIs for users, presence, chat, and collaboration awareness.

Alpha (as of Feb 2017)
Hosted
Javascript client only (for now)
Specifically designed for realtime collaboration
Web administration interface
Realtime data model editor

Firebase

A scalable real-time backend for your web app. Build apps really fast without the hassle of managing servers

iOS
Java / Android
JavaScript
WebSockets
BaaS (Backend as a Service)

Acquired by Google. Still active.

Google Drive Realtime API

Add Realtime collaboration to your app Give your users the power of Google Docs–style collaboration. All JavaScript. No server. No sweat.

Meteor

Meteor is a set of new technologies for building top-quality web apps in a fraction of the time, whether you’re an expert developer or just getting started.

Node.js
fullstack
HTTP Streaming
HTTP Long-polling
WebSockets

Not to be confused with the original Meteor Comet server

Realtime.co Cloud Storage

The Realtime.co Cloud Storage is a highly-scalable backend-as-a-service based on Amazon DynamoDB. Built-in real-time notifications keep data synchronized between users (web and mobile).

BaaS (Backend-as-a-Service)
Real-time data sync
JavaScript
iOS
Android (Java)
Node.js
React Native
Unity
NoSQL
DynamoDB
HTTP Streaming
HTTP Long-polling
WebSockets
Mobile Push Notifications for iOS and Android (APNS and GCM)
Server-side triggers and business logic

simperium

Simperium is a service for developers to move data everywhere it’s needed, instantly and automatically.

Messaging: with focus on delivery to servers

Superfeedr

RSS
PubSubHubbub

DataSift

Social Media data
RSS
HTTP Streaming

Other

Echo

Self Hosted Realtime Solutions

apache-websocket

WebSocket module for Apache

PHP
WebSockets
Apache

APE Project

WebSockets
Comet

Alchemy Websockets

An extremely efficient C# WebSocket server for .NET projects.

WebSockets
.NET
C#

ArduinoWebsocketServer

This library implements a Websocket server running on an Arduino

WebSockets
Server
Arduino

Atmosphere

Comet
WebSockets
Scala
Groovy
Java

Autobahn WebSocket

Autobahn provides Open-Source client and server implementations of WebSocket and WAMP.

WebSockets
Java
Android

Beacon Push

WebSockets
Comet
Fallback-support
Real-Time Client Push
Real-time messaging
Real-Time Data
Python
Ruby
PHP
node.js
REST API

BrainSocket

A Laravel package that allows you to get up and running with real-time event-driven PHP apps using WebSockets.

Laravel
WebSockets
PHP

Caplin System’s Liberator

Comet
WebSockets
Fallback-support
PubSub

Centrifugo

Real-time messaging server in Go language. This is a successor of Centrifuge. Server has simple API to publish messages into channels, provides presence and history information and more. Javascript client available to communicate from web browser. See full documentation on gitbooks.io.

Go
JavaScript
WebSockets
SockJS
HTTP-fallback
Presence
Event/Message history
PubSub

cometD

Comet

Cowboy

WebSockets
Erlang

Cramp

WebSockets
Server Sent Events
EventSource
Ruby

Deepstream.io

Deepstream.io is a fast and easy to use realtime server written in node. It offers persistant data structures, RPC and PubSub messaging that works on both client and server. Deepstream can connect to a variety of caches and databases and scales horizontally across multiple servers.

JavaScript
WebSockets
HTTP-fallback
PubSub
Persistant Data Structures
RPC
Events
node.js

em-websocket

EventMachine based, async, Ruby WebSocket server.

Ruby
WebSockets
Server

Emitter

Emitter is a free open source real-time messaging service that connects all devices. This publish-subscribe messaging API is built for speed and security.

MQTT Publish/Subscribe API
Scalable and Clustered
Easy to Use
Low Latency, uses LibUV under the hood
Scalable Message Filtering
Message Storage and Playback
Binary Messages
Websocket Support
Docker Deployment
SSL/TLS, Per-Channel Authorization and ACLs

erlang_websocket

Erlang
WebSockets
Server

erlycomet

Comet

FAYE

Real-Time messaging
Bayeux
node.js
Ruby

Firehose.io

Firehose is a minimally invasive way of building realtime web apps without complex protocols or rewriting your app from scratch. Its a dirt simple pub/sub server that keeps client-side Javascript models in synch with the server code via WebSockets or HTTP long polling.

WebSockets
HTTP Long-Polling
Ruby

Fleck

Fleck is a WebSocket server implementation in C#. Fleck requires no inheritance, container, or additional references.</p>

WebSockets
.NET

Garufa

Garufa is an open source Ruby WebSocket server which implements the Pusher protocol. It is built on top of Goliath, a high performance non-blocking web server, and inspired by Slanger, another server compatible with Pusher.

Open source
Ruby
Server
WebSockets

Goliath

Ruby
Asynchronous
non-blocking
HTTP Streaming

ICEfaces

Java-WebSocket

This repository contains a barebones WebSocket server and client implementation written in 100% Java. The underlying classes are implemented using the Java ServerSocketChannel and SocketChannel classes, which allows for a non-blocking event-driven model (similar to the WebSocket API for web browsers).

Java
WebSockets
Server
Client

Jetty

WebSockets
HTTP Streaming

juggernaut deprecated

WebSockets
Comet
Fallback-support
node.js

jwebsocket

Java
WebSockets

Kaazing

WebSockets
Fallback-support

libwebsockets

C Websockets Server Library

C
WebSockets
Server

LightStreamer

Comet
WebSockets

Meteor

Comet
Perl

Migratory

Comet
WebSockets

misultin

WebSockets
Erlang

Mojolicious

A modern Perl web framework built from the ground-up as a nonblocking web server, including built-in support for web sockets.

Full nonblocking web server
WebSockets
Perl

nowjs

node.js

Doesn’t appear to be actively maintained any more and the website is down.

Nugget

A web socket server implemented in c#.

The goal of the projects is to create an easy way to start using HTML5 web sockets in .NET web applications.

C#
.NET

phpDaemon

Asynchronous server-side framework for Web and network applications implemented in PHP using libevent. phpDaemon can handle thousands of simultaneous connections

PHP WebSocket

PHP
WebSockets

Persevere

Comet
PubSub

Plezi

Plezi is an easy to use Ruby Websocket Framework, with RESTful routing support and an MVC supportive design. It can also be used as middleware in other Rack frameworks (i.e. Rails / Sinatra apps). It’s name comes from the word “fun” in Haitian, since Plezi is really fun to work with and it keeps our code clean and streamlined.

WebSockets
HTTP RESTful routes
Stand-Alone / Middleware
Ruby with C extension server (uses the fast iodine server) - Optimized for and limited to BSD / Linux and MacOS.

Pokein

Comet
ASP.NET
Mono

Prosody

Prosody is a modern flexible communications server for Jabber/XMPP written in Lua. It aims to be easy to set up and configure, and light on resources. For developers it aims to be easy to extend and give a flexible system on which to rapidly develop added functionality, or prototype new protocols.

Jabber
XMPP
Lua
BOSH

Ratchet

A PHP 5.3 (PSR-0 compliant) component library for serving/consuming sockets and building socket based applications. Build up your application (like Lego!) through simple interfaces using the decorator and command patterns. Re-use your application without changing any of its code just by wrapping it in a different protocol.

PHP
WebSockets

RethinkDB

RethinkDB is the first open-source scalable database built for realtime applications. It exposes a new database access model – instead of polling for changes, the developer can tell the database to continuously push updated query results to applications in realtime. RethinkDB allows developers to build scalable realtime apps in a fraction of the time with less effort.

Open-source
database
NoSQL
schemaless JSON documents
Distributed
High availability
automatic failover
robust fault tolerance
Javascript
Python
Ruby
Go
Elixir
.NET

SignalR

WebSockets
Long-polling
ASP.NET
IIS
PubSub
RMI

Slanger

Slanger is an open source server implementation of the Pusher protocol written in Ruby.</p>

Ruby
WebSockets
Server

socket.io

Socket.IO aims to make realtime apps possible in every browser and mobile device, blurring the differences between the different transport mechanisms. It’s care-free realtime 100% in JavaScript.

WebSockets
Fallback-support
Flash Socket
HTTP Long-Polling
node.js
Cross Domain Support

SockJS

SockJS is a browser JavaScript library that provides a WebSocket-like object. SockJS gives you a coherent, cross-browser, Javascript API which creates a low latency, full duplex, cross-domain communication channel between the browser and the web server.

WebSockets
Fallback-support
HTTP Streaming
HTTP Polling
JSONP Polling
Cross Domain support
EventSource

SocketCluster

A highly scalable realtime environment for Node.js SocketCluster is a new kind of engine which sits between Node.js and your code to provide you with a resilient, scalable, realtime architecture.

With SC, you can build systems that make use of all CPU cores on a machine/instance. This removes the limitations of having to run your Node.js code as a single thread.

SC also gives you the flexibility to scale up and scale out easily and at your own pace.

Node.js

SocketTornad.IO

Implementation of the Socket.IO Websocket emulation protocol in Python on top of the non-blocking Tornado Web Framework.

Python
WebSockets
Server
Client

Spike-Engine

Spike-Engine allows quick and painless creation of real-time web services in .NET. Spike-Engine focuses on latency, bandwith and perfomance and has been designed and proven to be robust and reliable. The technology has been tested in production environment with thousands of simultaneous connections and used to build reliable game and application servers.

RPC
Automatic Client Stub Generation
WebSockets
Fallback Support
Cross-Domain Support
Comet
Long-Polling
PubSub
HTTP
.NET
Flash
FlashSockets
SPML / SECP
HTTP Tunneling
Security
Cross-Platform
Monitoring

StreamHub

SuperWebSocket, a .NET WebSocket server

WebSockets,
.NET

Thunder Push

Thunderpush is a Tornado and SockJS based push service. It provides a Beaconpush (beaconpush.com) inspired HTTP API and client.

SockJS
Python

Tornado

Tornado is a Python web framework and asynchronous networking library, originally developed at FriendFeed. By using non-blocking network I/O, Tornado can scale to tens of thousands of open connections, making it ideal for long polling, WebSockets, and other applications that require a long-lived connection to each user.

Represents a core building block of many other realtime web servers.