Building real-time features

Short summary

Most real-time web features fall into a few well-understood patterns: use Server-Sent Events for one-way server-to-client streams, WebSockets for bidirectional low-latency communication, and avoid polling by default. For scaling beyond a single server, introduce a pub/sub backbone (often Redis) so connection servers can fan out messages horizontally. Design for reconnection, missed-message catch-up, presence heartbeats, and per-subscription authorization from day one, and lean on managed real-time services unless you have a strong reason to build your own.

• •Choose SSE for one-way streams, WebSockets for bidirectional communication, polling only as a last resort
• •Scale with a pub/sub backbone (Redis) behind connection servers; prefer managed services like Supabase, Pusher, or Ably
• •Handle failure from day one: reconnection with backoff, missed-message catch-up, presence heartbeats, and per-subscription auth

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