Comparison of Real-time Communication Performance between Web sockets using Socket.io and Long-Polling using Ajax
Presenter(s)
Ei Myatnoe Aung, Early Year Research Presenter
Abstract
Short polling, long polling, server-sent events, and web sockets are some of the current techniques used to accomplish real time communication in web applications. They are based on a client-server communication model. Among these techniques, long polling and web sockets are the most popular and are more frequently used for real life projects. Long polling keeps the connection alive until there is valid response from the server, and terminates the connection tarts a new connection. Web sockets keep the connection open regardless until client or server leaves the connection. This study compares the performance of two most popular real-time communication techniques, long polling and web sockets. Real-time data dashboard was implemented in two versions: one with web sockets using Socket.io library and another in long polling using Ajax. The database in the backend was constantly updated at random intervals and all the changes were sent back to client side at real time through the respective real time techniques. The time needed by the two technologies based on the number of requests made, the total response time, and the CPU utilization were measured. The final testing results suggest that web sockets performance is comparable to that of long polling.
College
College of Science & Engineering
Department
Computer Science
Campus
Winona
First Advisor/Mentor
Mingrui Zhang
Second Advisor/Mentor
Sudharsan Iyengar
Start Date
4-19-2023 9:00 AM
End Date
4-19-2023 10:00 AM
Presentation Type
Poster Session - Early-Year RCA
Format of Presentation or Performance
In-Person
Session
1a=9am-10am
Poster Number
2
Comparison of Real-time Communication Performance between Web sockets using Socket.io and Long-Polling using Ajax
Short polling, long polling, server-sent events, and web sockets are some of the current techniques used to accomplish real time communication in web applications. They are based on a client-server communication model. Among these techniques, long polling and web sockets are the most popular and are more frequently used for real life projects. Long polling keeps the connection alive until there is valid response from the server, and terminates the connection tarts a new connection. Web sockets keep the connection open regardless until client or server leaves the connection. This study compares the performance of two most popular real-time communication techniques, long polling and web sockets. Real-time data dashboard was implemented in two versions: one with web sockets using Socket.io library and another in long polling using Ajax. The database in the backend was constantly updated at random intervals and all the changes were sent back to client side at real time through the respective real time techniques. The time needed by the two technologies based on the number of requests made, the total response time, and the CPU utilization were measured. The final testing results suggest that web sockets performance is comparable to that of long polling.
