Building Real-time Applications with WebSockets

In this post, we'll build a robust real-time architecture using WebSockets with proper backpressure, reconnection, and auth.

Architecture Overview

- Client connects via secure WebSocket (WSS)

- Token-based auth with short-lived JWTs

- Pub/Sub layer for fan-out (e.g., Redis PubSub)

- Delivery guarantees through message ACKs

Backpressure Handling

Use bounded queues and drop policies to avoid server overload. Apply adaptive rate limiting per client.

Reconnection Strategy

Implement exponential backoff with jitter, and resume sessions via server-issued resume tokens.

Published on December 28, 2023