Realtime vs Polling
Developers should learn and use realtime concepts when building applications that require instant data synchronization, live user interactions, or monitoring of time-critical processes, such as in collaborative tools, financial platforms, or IoT systems 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.
Realtime
Developers should learn and use realtime concepts when building applications that require instant data synchronization, live user interactions, or monitoring of time-critical processes, such as in collaborative tools, financial platforms, or IoT systems
Realtime
Nice PickDevelopers should learn and use realtime concepts when building applications that require instant data synchronization, live user interactions, or monitoring of time-critical processes, such as in collaborative tools, financial platforms, or IoT systems
Pros
- +It is essential for enhancing user experience by reducing delays and ensuring up-to-date information, which is crucial in competitive or safety-sensitive environments like online gaming or healthcare monitoring
- +Related to: websockets, server-sent-events
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
Use Realtime if: You want it is essential for enhancing user experience by reducing delays and ensuring up-to-date information, which is crucial in competitive or safety-sensitive environments like online gaming or healthcare monitoring and can live with specific tradeoffs depend on your use case.
Use Polling if: You prioritize 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 over what Realtime offers.
Developers should learn and use realtime concepts when building applications that require instant data synchronization, live user interactions, or monitoring of time-critical processes, such as in collaborative tools, financial platforms, or IoT systems
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