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Home Software Development Software Development Tutorials Top Differences Tutorial WebSocket vs Socket.io
 

WebSocket vs Socket.io

Priya Pedamkar
Article byPriya Pedamkar

Updated March 6, 2023

WebSocket vs Socket.io

 

 

Difference Between WebSocket and Socket.io

WebSocket is the communication Protocol that provides bidirectional communication between the Client and the Server over a TCP connection; WebSocket remains open all the time, so they allow real-time data transfer. When clients trigger the request to the server, it does not close the connection on receiving the response; it rather persists and waits for the Client or server to terminate the request.

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Socket.IO is a library that enables real-time and full-duplex communication between the Client and the Web servers. It uses the WebSocket protocol to provide the interface. Generally, it is divided into two parts; both WebSocket vs Socket.io are event-driven libraries.

  • Client-Side: it is the library that runs inside the browser
  • Server Side: It is the library for Node.js

WebSocket

Below are the features:

Key features of WebSocket 

  • WebSocket helps in real-time communication between the Client and the webserver.
  • This protocol helps in transforming to cross-platform in a real-time world between the server and the client.
  • This also enables the business worldwide for a real-time web application to enhance and increase the feasibility.
  • The major advantage it stands over an HTTP connection that it provides full-duplex communication.

WebSocket protocol schema 

WebSocket protocol schema

Why do we need WebSocket?

  • It provides full-duplex communication, which helps in persisting the connection established between the Client and the Web Server.
  • It also lives up to the standards and provides the accuracy and efficiency stream events to and from with negligible latency.
  • WebSocket removes the overhead and reduce complexity.
  • It makes real-time communication effortless and efficient.

Socket.IO

Below are the features

Key features of Socket.IO

  • It helps in broadcasting to multiple sockets at a time and handles the connection transparently.
  • It works on all platform, server or device, ensuring equality, reliability, and speed.
  • It automatically upgrades the requirement to WebSocket if needed.
  • It is a custom real-time transport protocol implementation on top of other protocols.
  • It requires both libraries to be used Client side as well as a server-side library.
  • IO works on work-based events. there are some reserved events that can be accessed using the Socket on the server side like Connect, message, Disconnect, Ping and Reconnect.
  • There are some Client based reserved events like Connect, connect- error, connect-timeout and Reconnect etc.

Why do we need Socket.IO:

  • I handle all the degradation of your technical alternatives to get full-duplex communication in real-time.
  • It also handles the various support level and the inconsistencies from the browser.
  • It also gives the additional feature room support for basic publish infrastructure and thinks like automatic reconnect.
  • Currently, AFAIK is the most used one and easier to help with vanilla web sockets.

Head To Head Comparison Between WebSocket and Socket.io (Infographics)

Below is the top 5 comparison of WebSocket vs Socket.io:

WebSockets vs Socket.io Infographics

Key Differences between WebSocket and socket.io

Both WebSocket vs Socket.io are popular choices in the market; let us discuss some of the major Difference Between WebSocket vs Socket.io:

  • It provides the Connection over TCP, while Socket.io is a library to abstract the WebSocket connections.
  • WebSocket doesn’t have fallback options, while Socket.io supports fallback.
  • WebSocket is the technology, while Socket.io is a library for WebSockets.

WebSocket vs Socket.io Comparison Table

Below is the topmost comparison between WebSocket vs Socket.io:

S. No. WebSocket Socket.io
1 It is the protocol that is established over the TCP connection  It is the library to work with WebSocket
2 It provides full-duplex communication on TCP connections. Provides the event-based communication between browser and server.
3 Proxy and load balancer is not supported in WebSocket. A connection can be established in the presence of proxies and load balancers.
4. It doesn’t support broadcasting. It supports broadcasting.
5. It doesn’t have a fallback option. It supports fallback options.

Conclusion

This is all about the WebSocket vs Socket.io. There is not much theoretically to learn about these topics. You have to be practical about that. Basically, WebSocket is a browser inherited technology; the more you code, the more you will learn.

Recommended Article

This has been a guide to WebSocket vs Socket.io. Here we also discuss the WebSocket vs Socket.io key differences with infographics and comparison table. You may also have a look at the following articles to learn more-

  1. WebSocket vs REST
  2. SOAP vs REST 
  3. Haskell vs Erlang
  4. SOAP vs HTTP

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