Open-source alternatives to Websockets

WebSocket-Node is a server-side implementation of the WebSocket protocol for Node.js environments. It serves as a framework for establishing persistent, bidirectional communication channels and low-latency data exchange between clients and servers. The project provides a secure socket implementation using transport layer security and includes an integrated client for establishing outbound encrypted connections. It utilizes a formal protocol-state machine and an event-driven connection framework to manage high-concurrency network streams. The framework covers server-side infrastructure includ

Java-WebSocket is a collection of classes for implementing WebSocket clients and servers using pure Java. It provides a framework for hosting servers that manage connections via event-driven subclasses and tools for establishing client connections to remote servers. The library includes a secure communication tool for encrypting traffic using the WSS protocol and a compression library that uses per-message deflate extensions to reduce transmitted data size. It supports the configuration of cipher suites to limit encryption protocols and ensure compatible communication. The project enables bi

libhv is a high-performance C/C++ network library and event-driven I/O framework used to build TCP, UDP, SSL, HTTP, WebSocket, and MQTT clients and servers. It provides a non-blocking event loop for managing network sockets, timers, and system signals across multiple threads. The project is distinguished by its integrated support for specialized network roles, including a full HTTP web server with RESTful routing and middleware, an MQTT messaging client for IoT communication, and the ability to implement SOCKS5 and HTTP proxies. It also features a reliable UDP implementation to ensure ordered

Robyn is a high-performance asynchronous web framework and server for Python that utilizes a Rust-powered runtime to execute code. It functions as an asynchronous Python web server designed to handle many concurrent requests efficiently through a multithreaded execution model. The project includes specialized capabilities for AI agent request routing, managing communication between agents and external tools. It also serves as a WebSocket communication server, maintaining persistent bidirectional channels for real-time data exchange. The framework covers a broad range of web infrastructure, i

aiohttp is an asynchronous networking framework for Python that provides both an HTTP client and an HTTP server. It utilizes the asyncio library to handle network requests and server-side routing through a non-blocking event loop. The framework includes a dedicated toolkit for establishing persistent bidirectional communication channels, enabling the implementation of both WebSocket servers and clients for real-time data exchange. It covers a broad range of asynchronous network programming capabilities, including the development of web servers with customizable routing and the ability to sen

Crow is a C++ web framework for building HTTP servers, providing routing, a middleware pipeline, JSON serialization, and WebSocket support. It enables developers to define typed route handlers that extract URL parameters at compile time, return structured JSON responses, and manage real-time bidirectional communication. The framework distinguishes itself with compile-time route pattern parsing and typed argument binding, which eliminate runtime parsing overhead for URL parameters. Its event loop runs on Boost.Asio, and handler execution can be offloaded to a configurable thread pool to keep I

Melody is a WebSocket server framework designed to upgrade HTTP connections into bidirectional streams. It functions as a session manager and binary streaming library that facilitates real-time data exchange between a server and multiple remote clients. The project features a broadcast engine that optimizes multi-client transmissions through wire-representation caching. It includes a dedicated session management system for attaching custom state to persistent network connections and an upgrade handler that validates handshake headers. The framework covers broad capability areas including eve

This is a header-only C++ library and asynchronous network framework used to implement WebSocket clients and servers. It provides a full implementation of the WebSocket protocol, including handshakes, subprotocol negotiation, and frame parsing. The framework is distinguished by a policy-based transport layer and template-driven protocol negotiation, allowing the underlying network implementation to be swapped between raw buffers, streams, or custom policies. It supports per-message deflate compression to reduce data transmission volume and integrates Transport Layer Security for encrypted bid

Quart is an asynchronous Python web framework that implements the ASGI specification. It is used to build high-performance HTTP and WebSocket services, JSON REST APIs, and web applications using async and await syntax for non-blocking request handling. The framework supports persistent bidirectional communication via WebSocket API servers and enables the proactive delivery of assets through HTTP server push. It also includes a template engine for rendering dynamic HTML web pages and supports incremental request and response streaming to manage large payloads. General capabilities cover reque

This is a header-only C++ library that provides implementations for HTTP clients, HTTP servers, and a WebSocket framework. It allows for the creation of network services and the consumption of remote APIs without requiring a separate compilation step or external binary linking. The project features backend-agnostic TLS integration for secure HTTPS and WSS communication and employs a thread-pool model to process concurrent requests. It distinguishes itself with a full-duplex WebSocket state-machine and a middleware-based request pipeline that supports regular-expression path routing. The libr

This project is a comprehensive sample library and implementation guide for ASP.NET Core. It provides a collection of practical examples and projects that demonstrate how to build web applications, RESTful APIs, and high-performance services. The repository focuses on a variety of architectural patterns, including the development of Minimal APIs, contract-first gRPC services, and real-time communication using WebSockets and Server-Sent Events. It includes detailed implementations for user identity and security, such as token-based authentication and CSRF protection. The codebase covers a bro

This project is a cross-platform C library designed for implementing MQTT messaging in applications. It serves as an asynchronous networking toolkit that enables resource-constrained systems and distributed components to exchange telemetry data and control signals with messaging brokers. The library distinguishes itself through a state-machine-based protocol handler that manages connection lifecycles and persistent session states, ensuring reliable message delivery even during intermittent network connectivity. It utilizes a background thread to manage network operations, allowing application

Websocat is a specialized set of command-line tools for WebSocket communication, acting as a client, server, and stream processor. It provides a terminal-based interface for connecting to WebSocket servers, hosting secure WebSocket servers, and bridging data between WebSockets and other network transports. The project distinguishes itself by functioning as a bidirectional network relay, allowing the routing of data between WebSocket streams, TCP sockets, UNIX sockets, and standard system input and output. It includes specialized implementations for SOCKS5 and HTTP proxying, as well as a strea

Leptos is a full-stack Rust web framework designed for building reactive applications that share logic and types between the server and the browser. It provides a comprehensive toolkit for developing web interfaces where specific DOM nodes update automatically in response to changes in underlying reactive signals, rather than re-rendering entire component trees. The framework distinguishes itself through a fine-grained reactivity model that tracks dependencies at the individual data point level. It utilizes compile-time template transformation to convert declarative HTML-like syntax into opti

Gevent is a Python coroutine concurrency library and asynchronous task manager designed for high-concurrency I/O tasks. It provides a cooperative networking framework for building asynchronous TCP, UDP, and HTTP servers, as well as a WSGI web server implementation for hosting web applications. The project is distinguished by its standard library monkey-patching tool, which replaces blocking synchronous functions with cooperative versions to enable asynchronous behavior in third-party code. This allows for a cooperative multitasking workflow where the system yields execution during I/O waits t

This is a Python WebSocket client library designed to establish full-duplex, persistent network connections for real-time exchange of text and binary data. It functions as an asynchronous network client and a TCP socket wrapper, managing the complete lifecycle of a connection from the initial handshake to graceful closure. The implementation includes a secure WebSocket client that handles SSL/TLS encryption, certificate verification, and secure handshake protocols. It further distinguishes itself by supporting advanced connectivity options, including proxy routing via HTTP or SOCKS proxies an

LearnPython is a programming tutorial consisting of a collection of practical code examples used to demonstrate Python language features and programming patterns. It serves as a comprehensive learning resource that implements core language concepts through functional code. The project provides specialized guides and samples covering several key domains. These include asynchronous network programming with event loops and coroutines, data visualization using numerical datasets for 2D and 3D plots, and web scraping for fetching content and automating login flows. It also features instructions on

This project is a Node.js WebSocket library that provides a high-performance client and server implementation for the WebSocket protocol. It functions as a transport layer for real-time bidirectional communication, supporting both UTF-8 strings and binary data transport through the use of TCP socket wrappers. The library enables the creation of WebSocket servers that manage full-duplex connections and broadcast messages to multiple clients, as well as WebSocket clients that establish persistent links to remote servers. It handles the protocol upgrade process via TCP-based handshake negotiatio

wscat is a command-line WebSocket client and server tool that provides an interactive terminal interface for connecting to WebSocket endpoints, sending and receiving text messages in real time, and managing WebSocket control frames through typed slash commands. It supports basic HTTP authentication by injecting credentials into the initial WebSocket handshake request, and can route connections through an HTTP proxy using the CONNECT tunneling method. The tool includes a built-in WebSocket server mode that listens on a specified port, accepts incoming client connections, and relays messages be

PartyKit is a serverless WebSocket backend platform for building real-time multiplayer applications. It provides a globally distributed edge computing runtime that runs stateful server code close to users, with automatic scaling and hibernation for idle rooms. The platform handles WebSocket connections, HTTP requests, and durable storage without requiring infrastructure management, and includes a client and server SDK with hooks, storage, and Yjs integration for building collaborative features. The platform distinguishes itself through per-room isolation using Durable Objects, where each uniq

AndroidAsync is a non-blocking networking library for Android that provides asynchronous sockets, HTTP clients, and servers based on Java NIO. It serves as a toolkit for managing raw TCP socket connections and bidirectional data streams using an asynchronous input and output architecture. The library includes a dedicated WebSocket framework for establishing persistent full-duplex communication channels between Android clients and servers. It also enables the hosting of a lightweight asynchronous HTTP server directly on an Android device to handle incoming network traffic. Its broader capabil

This is a minimal WebSocket library for Go designed for bidirectional real-time communication. It serves as a network protocol implementation for managing handshakes, frame masking, and control signals to enable the exchange of text and binary messages over persistent connections. The library distinguishes itself by providing a connectivity layer that wraps browser WebSocket APIs for applications compiled to WebAssembly. It also functions as data compression middleware, utilizing deflate compression to reduce bandwidth usage for transmitted messages. The project covers a broad range of netwo

This project is a PHP library designed for establishing persistent, bidirectional communication channels using the WebSocket protocol. It functions as both a client and a server implementation, providing the necessary tools to initiate connections with remote endpoints or host custom messaging services. The library manages the full lifecycle of network connections, including the initial HTTP handshake negotiation required to upgrade standard web traffic to a persistent stream. It utilizes low-level stream resources to handle data flow and incorporates automated heartbeat signals to monitor co

RoadRunner is a high-performance application server and process manager designed to serve PHP applications using a persistent worker model. It eliminates bootload overhead and initialization time by keeping application processes alive between requests, acting as a protocol-agnostic proxy that routes traffic to a pool of supervised workers. The server is built with a plugin-based modular architecture, allowing it to be extended with custom Go plugins and compiled into tailored binaries. It distinguishes itself by providing a unified execution model for a wide array of communication protocols,

Baileys is a TypeScript API client library used to interact with the WhatsApp Web API via WebSockets without requiring a browser. It functions as a real-time communication tool that handles bidirectional data exchange and event-based socket connections. The project includes a dedicated toolkit for managing WhatsApp Business profiles and product catalogs, alongside a session manager that authenticates accounts using QR codes or pairing codes and persists session state to disk. Its capabilities cover a wide range of messaging functions, including multi-type message transmission, chat history s

Starlette is a lightweight ASGI web framework and asynchronous HTTP toolkit used to build high-performance HTTP and WebSocket services. It functions as a WebSocket server framework and a collection of ASGI middleware components for managing network requests through non-blocking asynchronous logic. The framework provides tools for real-time communication via persistent bidirectional channels and infrastructure for high-performance APIs. It includes specialized capabilities for response compression, incremental data streaming, and the execution of non-blocking background tasks after a response

Uvicorn is an ASGI web application host designed for asynchronous Python web development. It serves applications through a standardized asynchronous server gateway interface to handle non-blocking network traffic and high-concurrency requests. The server manages both HTTP and WebSocket traffic, including the handshaking process required to establish persistent, full-duplex communication channels for real-time data exchange. For development workflows, the project includes a hot-reload mechanism that monitors the filesystem for source code changes and automatically restarts the server process.