Cloud Messaging vs Polling

Developers should learn Cloud Messaging when building applications that require real-time notifications, such as mobile apps for news alerts, chat applications, or IoT devices sending status updates meets developers should use polling when building applications that need to monitor state changes, fetch updates from apis without websocket support, or in embedded systems where hardware constraints limit push-based methods. Here's our take.

Cloud Messaging

Nice Pick

Developers should learn Cloud Messaging when building applications that require real-time notifications, such as mobile apps for news alerts, chat applications, or IoT devices sending status updates

Pros

• It is essential for enhancing user engagement by delivering timely information without requiring users to manually refresh the app, and it helps in scenarios like sending transactional emails, marketing campaigns, or system alerts in enterprise software
• Related to: firebase-cloud-messaging, amazon-sns

Cons

• Specific tradeoffs depend on your use case

Polling

Developers should use polling when building applications that need to monitor state changes, fetch updates from APIs without WebSocket support, or in embedded systems where hardware constraints limit push-based methods

Pros

• It is particularly useful for simple monitoring tasks, such as checking for new messages in a chat app, tracking file upload progress, or querying sensor data in IoT devices, where low-frequency updates are acceptable and implementation simplicity is prioritized over efficiency
• Related to: long-polling, webhooks

Cons

• Specific tradeoffs depend on your use case

The Verdict

These tools serve different purposes. Cloud Messaging is a platform while Polling is a concept. We picked Cloud Messaging based on overall popularity, but your choice depends on what you're building.

The Bottom Line

Cloud Messaging wins

Based on overall popularity. Cloud Messaging is more widely used, but Polling excels in its own space.