WebSockets excel in applications that require real-time, two-way communication, making them ideal for dynamic use cases. They are the backbone of live chat systems, enabling instant message delivery without constant page refreshes, and are crucial for customer support, social media, and collaborative tools like Google Docs, where changes are immediately visible to all users.
WebSockets also power real-time notifications for emails, meetings, and social media updates, ensuring users receive timely alerts. They provide live sports updates, keep fans informed on scores and stats without refreshing the page, and are essential in financial tickers, offering real-time stock prices and market changes for timely trading decisions.
In online gaming, WebSockets maintain a persistent connection between servers and players, facilitating smooth, real-time updates on game states and player interactions.
Zerodha: India’s largest retail stockbroker uses WebSockets for real-time market data updates on their trading platform.
Zomato: A leading restaurant discovery and food delivery platform that uses WebSockets for real-time chat support and order updates.
Dream11: A fantasy sports platform that uses WebSockets to provide live match updates and real-time scoring for its users.
Hotstar (Disney+ Hotstar): A popular streaming service that uses WebSockets for real-time updates and live streaming features, especially during live sports events.
WebSockets offer a solution to the limitations of traditional HTTP connections by providing a full-duplex communication channel over a single TCP connection. This allows for continuous, real-time data exchange between the client and server.
HTTP, where the client has to request to receive updates, WebSockets enable the server to push updates to the client whenever new data is available. This reduces latency and network overhead, making WebSockets an ideal choice for applications that require fast and efficient data transmission.
In this blog, we’ll delve into how to implement SpringBoot WebSocket in a Spring Boot application. We’ll cover the basics of setting up a WebSocket server, provide code examples, discuss the advantages and disadvantages, and compare WebSockets to other communication technologies.
To use WebSockets in a Spring Boot application, you need to include the necessary dependencies in your pom.xml.
<dependency>
<groupId>org.springframework.boot</groupId>
<artifactId>spring-boot-starter-websocket</artifactId>
</dependency>Let’s create a basic Spring Boot WebSocket application using Spring Boot.
package com.websocket.spring;
import org.springframework.boot.SpringApplication;
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.SpringBootApplication;
import org.springframework.boot.autoconfigure.jdbc.DataSourceAutoConfiguration;
@SpringBootApplication(exclude = { DataSourceAutoConfiguration.class
})
public class WebSocketApplication {
public static void main(String[] args) {
SpringApplication.run(WebSocketApplication.class, args);
}
}package com.websocket.spring;
import org.springframework.context.annotation.Configuration;
import org.springframework.web.socket.config.annotation.EnableWebSocket;
import org.springframework.web.socket.config.annotation.WebSocketConfigurer;
import org.springframework.web.socket.config.annotation.WebSocketHandlerRegistry;
@Configuration
@EnableWebSocket
public class WebSocketConfig implements WebSocketConfigurer {
@Override
public void registerWebSocketHandlers(WebSocketHandlerRegistry
registry) {
registry.addHandler(new MyWebSocketHandler(),
"/ws").setAllowedOrigins("*");
}
}Related read: Build A Multi-User Chat Application Using Websockets
package com.websocket.spring;
import org.springframework.web.socket.CloseStatus;
import org.springframework.web.socket.TextMessage;
import org.springframework.web.socket.WebSocketSession;
import org.springframework.web.socket.handler.TextWebSocketHandler;
public class MyWebSocketHandler extends TextWebSocketHandler {
@Override
public void afterConnectionEstablished(WebSocketSession session)
throws Exception {
System.out.println("Connected: " + session.getId());
}
@Override
protected void handleTextMessage(WebSocketSession session,
TextMessage message) throws Exception {
System.out.println("Received: " + message.getPayload());
session.sendMessage(new TextMessage("Echo: " +
message.getPayload()));
}
@Override
public void afterConnectionClosed(WebSocketSession session,
CloseStatus status) throws Exception {
System.out.println("Disconnected: " + session.getId());
}
}Compared to other libraries like Socket.IO or SignalR, Spring Boot’s SpringBoot WebSocket support integrates smoothly with the Spring ecosystem, providing familiar configuration and dependency management. While Socket.IO offers features like automatic reconnection and broadcasting, Spring Boot’s implementation is more lightweight and integrates well with Spring’s security, messaging, and data access components.
SpringBoot WebSocket provides a robust solution for real-time, bidirectional communication in Spring Boot applications. By leveraging Spring Boot’s WebSocket support, developers can create responsive and interactive applications with minimal latency. Despite some challenges and limitations, the benefits of using WebSockets make them a compelling choice for applications that need dynamic data exchange. Check out the example on GitHub to get started with SpringBoot WebSocket in Spring Boot and see how they can enhance your next project.
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