Why One Developer Switched From WebSockets to SSE for Live Dashboards
While building a Node.js dashboard that needed live updates without page refreshes, the author initially assumed WebSockets were the right tool. On closer analysis, the dashboard only required one-way data flow from server to browser, so the bidirectional capability of WebSockets went unused. Server-Sent Events run over standard HTTP, use the browser's native EventSource API, and avoid the manual lifecycle and heartbeat management that WebSockets demand. The article notes SSE integrates easily with existing proxies and load balancers, benefits from HTTP/2 multiplexing, and handles reconnection natively. The author concludes that protocol choice should follow the direction of data flow rather than update frequency alone.
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