Real-time communication, including one enhanced by the WebSocket & Node.js set, is a very strong trend concerning the development of modern apps or technologies in general. RTC vastly transforms and greatly influences the way people live, communicate, and get together, and aims to provide them with the best results and experiences possible.
Real-time communication is one that is live, with no transmission delays, and no data stored between transmission and reception. RTC apps are a broad term that encompasses things like real-time massaging and chats, live streaming, file and screen sharing, push notifications, real-time feed, tracking and status updates, stock tickers, live auctions, sports updates, and multiplayer games as well as real-time collaboration, mobile phones, landlines, and videoconferencing, to name but a few.
One of the ways to develop RTC apps is with the help of tools such as Node WebSocket. But how exactly powerful solutions such as Node.js WS may help us in creating a top-tier RTC app? Let’s see.
Check out the table of contents:
1. WebSocket & Node.js – a great combination for RTC
2. The most useful RTC Tips'n'Tricks
3. Node WebSocket – an easy, powerful, and efficient tool for RTC
1. WebSocket & Node.js – a great combination for RTC
Real-time communication, or RTC, is undoubtedly one of the most recent and strongest technological trends. Moreover, it’s regarded as and even dubbed the driving force, or the vital spark, of the truly innovative companies. What can help them win over more customers are certainly devices, applications, and tools that enable real-time communication. They can be created with a variety of tools, including a mixture of WebSocket protocol and C, C++, Go, PHP, Erlang, Django, Flask, and more. Of course, Node.js allows developers to use JavaScript programming language, too.
And it’s WebSocket and Node.js, combined, that are on the list of the most powerful yet simple tech stacks that can make a dream of developing an RTC app come true. This is a good choice because both Node.js and WebSocket, or npm WS combo, are perfect for real-time applications – the former for serving it, and the latter for designing and building it. It’s WebSocket gateways that enable sending out messages or notifications to clients.
Here, Mozilla sheds light on what WebSocket is and how it enables two-way communication from and with the server.
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.
It’s good to keep in mind, however, that WebSockets are only one of many real-time communication techniques successfully implemented nowadays, like Server-Sent Events and Long Polling.
2. The most useful RTC Tips'n'Tricks
If you want to start the adventure of creating RTC apps with WebSocket and Node.js, here are some useful guidelines you may follow to achieve this goal. To be able to succeed, it’s crucial to use the right tools. These are some useful notions regarding this:
- WebSocket scalable applications in Node.js may be built with the use of a lightweight and fast ClusterWS framework
- Socket.IO, a speedy and reliable third-party transfer protocol for Node.js enables bidirectional and evidence-based RTC, and is proper for multiple tasks like real-time analytics (in counters or charts), instant messaging and chat, as well as concurrent document collaboration and binary streaming
- WebSocket-Node – "a (mostly) pure JavaScript implementation of the WebSocket protocol versions 8 and 13 for Node" is a Client & Server Implementation for Node that can both aggravate incoming fragmented messages and fragment outgoing messages
Other use cases of Node & WebSocket combination include frameworks, applications, libraries, and specific tools. A good Node.js & WebSocket example is ws – a Node.js WebSocket library – a "blazing fast and thoroughly tested" Node.js WebSocket server and client.
3. Node Websocket – an easy, powerful, and efficient tool for RTC
If you’re wondering if or why npm WebSocket – a technology or tool that echoes back everything that has been sent to it – should be used in your own projects, it’s the simplicity and efficiency that may bring you the answer. Also, a WebSocket’s use implies certain elasticity and versatility – its code may be extended and serve different or additional purposes. For example, you may transform one-way communication into a fuller form, i.e. complement sending messages only mode with the possibility to receive comments via WebSocket.
It’s Node.js that makes WebSocket's huge power and impressive abilities in terms of building RTC apps unveiled the right way. As the future belongs to real-time communication, it simply pays off to be ahead of competitors in this regard. And this may be achieved by using fast, powerful, efficient, and easy-to-use tools such as a WebSocket Node.js combo.
And do you have experience in developing RTC apps with WebSocket & Node.js? What challenges did you have to face? What other easy and powerful tools for RTC development can you recommend?
