As soon as you even mention the words real time and browser everyone’s minds immediately go to WebSockets. And I get it, WebSockets are cool, flexible and can be used for almost anything. From updates to how far away your bus is, to downloading a stream of messages in chat applications to syncing your current state for collaboration when multiple people work on the same document.

But there exists other technologies that do the same thing. Things that have just as good browser support (maybe even better), demand less from the network setup of the server, and is a lot easier to understand how works.