Realtime Transport · decision tool
Long polling vs WebSockets — for your app, not in general
Long polling or WebSockets? Scored on documented capabilities for your requirements — the honest fit comparison, with "No clear winner" when they're genuinely close.
Capabilities verified 2026-07-17 against official documentation · fit weights are our estimates (see methodology) · share the URL to share your configuration
As of Jul 2026, for this page's default requirements, Long polling is the clear pick at 84% capability fit (WebSockets: 34%). This is a capability-fit decision, not a price ranking — StackSays does not invent a unified dollar comparison across these tools' incompatible billing units. Change any requirement below and the verdict recomputes.
Your requirements
The verdict updates as you change these. Share the URL to share your answers.
Clear pick
Long polling (84% fit)
Ranked by capability fit
Long polling vs WebSockets — the tradeoffs that decide it
- Serverless compatibility: Long polling — Works on serverless — no persistent-connection server to run (documented constraint). WebSockets — Needs a long-lived connection that serverless functions can't hold — the classic 'websockets on serverless' problem.
- Simplicity: Long polling — Few moving parts — simple to build and operate. WebSockets — More moving parts (connection lifecycle, scaling, reconnection) to own.
- Auto-reconnect: Long polling — Built-in reconnection on drop (documented). WebSockets — You implement reconnection/heartbeat yourself.
- Direction match: Long polling — One-way server → client is exactly this transport's shape. WebSockets — Two-way capable (more than you need for one-way).
When to pick WebSockets instead: when the lines above where it leads matter more to you than the ones where Long polling leads. Change the inputs to see the ranking flip.
This is a capability-fit decision, not a price ranking — these tools bill in incompatible units (per-search vs per-RAM cluster vs per-PB scanned) and several publish rates only in their own calculators, so StackSays does not invent a unified dollar comparison. Every score above traces to a documented capability; see Data sources below.
At a glance
| Tool | Deployment | Open source | Verified |
|---|---|---|---|
| WebSockets | Self-hosted | Yes | 2026-07-17 |
| Long polling | Self-hosted | Yes | 2026-07-17 |
Data sources
| Tool | Source | Verified |
|---|---|---|
| WebSockets | MDN WebSockets API (capabilities) | 2026-07-17 |
| Long polling | MDN Fetch/HTTP (polling uses standard requests) | 2026-07-17 |
A monitor re-checks these pages for changes; when a vendor moves a price, the date updates and every verdict recomputes.