Can somebody please compare these two websocket servers. I have to select one of them; I need an expert opinion due to newbie in multiplayer "online" gaming. I would probably have the flash client. What challenges I could face using one over other.
thanks in advance.
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I am a jWebSocket developer, we are currently working in the first production version of jWebSocket, I will just mention some advantages of jWebSocket: - Multiple clients ( JavaScript, C#, Java OS, BlackBerry, Android, GWT(In process), and some others ). - Multiple WebSocket engines, just switch and run in the configuration, among them (Grizzly-GlassFish, Tomcat, TCP, NIO...) in order to become jWebSocket more widely used and make applications easier to be migrated. - NFC and SmartCards, Arduino and other technologies. - A very variated set of Demos in the client side (Games, Chat, sms, WebSocket-Captcha, Sencha, Jquery & jQuery Mobile plugIns, Arduino, Smartcard, SessionStorage, SSH-Remote Shell Control RT in the web, a Ping Pong Game demo, Channels to create full client side applications without need a server side plug-ins, etc... )
We have been working during a long time in a new Documentation, a new Web Site and a new Production release of jWebSocket for our community, jWebSocket is a project created by people from all the world who dedicate their free time to contribute and create a really usable product to be used by all the opensource community. We are trying to give our best to the community.
I wouldn't establish a comparison between Kaazing and jWebSocket, they both have different communities, goals and LICENSES.
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Full disclosure: I work for Kaazing and I have not used jWebSocket myself.
A couple of quick points:
0) Production vs. Beta
Kaazing is production-quality software. The download link on the jWebSocket web page points me to a beta version of the product.
1) Client Technologies
Kaazing provides WebSocket libraries for multiple client technologies (JavaScript, Java, .NET/Silverlight, and Flash), It looks like jWebSocket provides JavaScript and Java. You mention you would need a Flash client and AFAIK only Kaazing provides that. jWebSocket uses Flash for emulation (see the next point).
Note: Kaazing now provides AngularJS, ReactJS, Objective-C (iOS), Xamarin (.NET with support for iOS and Android), Java, .NET, and Android clients. However support for SilverLight and Flash have been deprecated.
2) Emulation (for browsers that do not support WebSocket)
jWebSocket requires Flash, Kaazing does not. Note that Flash emulation for secure WebSocket (wss://) requires you to open a separate port for the Flash x-domain policy file. In many enterprises this is a non-starter.
3) Protocol Support
Kaazing offers a wide range of higher-level protocols on top of WebSocket: JMS (can run against any back-end JMS message broker), STOMP, AMQP, XMPP, etc. I don't know what jWebSocket does in this space.
4) Enterprise Deployment
It is easy to configure the Kaazing WebSocket Gateway in conjunction with existing Directory services (LDAP). It supports Single Sign-On, and the gateway can easily be clustered for HA purposes (again, not quite sure what jWebSocket does here.)
Please take a look at the documentation for these features:
Security configuration:
5) Open Source
jWebSocket is open source, Kaazing has both an open source Community Edition and an Enterprise Edition.
Hope this helps for now!
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If you are looking for a pure open source project, look at the Atmosphere Framework. License is Apache 2.
-- Jeanfrancois (creator of Atmosphere)
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For me, the main point is Kaazing has a proprietary license and it's payed. jWebSocket is LGPL and free. If you are developing an application with an ROI that allows you to pay for a service like Kazzing, I think it is a good option (like pubnub.com and pusher.com), but if you want to build a complete solution and host it or you want to contribute with OS community to create a new websocket alternative, jWebSocket is an excellent option.
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There are two things I would add to Peter's comment, one is that Kaazing's emulation solution exposes identical APIs to the native WebSocket APIs, so you only have to learn WebSocket not some other proprietary API. You can check out the demos and the doc that Peter referred to for more information.
Secondly, Kaazing just announced the availability of Kaazing WebSocket Gateway AMIs on Amazon EC2 - http://kaazing.com/cloud
Best, Jonas
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jWebSocket is a good framework and support almost all servers. It has support of jetty too. Only problem with jWebSocket is slow development and zero support. Websocket specification are changing very rapidly and jWebSocket releases are very slow. I would prefer to wait and watch jWebSocket framework for some time.
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For a gaming platform you might want to check out http://www.pubnub.com/. I met their CTO at a developer conference and for your stated purpose, you might just win big with not having to manage the infrastructure on your own. Check out their http://www.pubnub.com/customers/showcase for details on who is using their infrastructure and for what purpose.
I've been working with jWebSockets for the past 3 months or so, and this is the first I hear of Kaazing.
I will describe how I feel about jWebSocket so far to the best of my ability in the hope that it will help.
Setting up the developing environment and getting started wasn't easy but developing using it is rather comfortable. The entire system makes sense and it is quite easy to understand. You program with Java on the server side and js on the client using json based tokens, it makes it very easy to send and receive data.
It is however very lacking in support. There are a lot of missing documentation and the support forum is nearly dead. There is payed support from the developers but I've never tried it.
There are a lot of open source demos that you can use to understand and get started. Most of them were working smoothly. Something I cannot say about kaazing after a brief visit to their demo site.
In the few months I've been working with jWebSocket I've yet to encounter a single bug, The system works smoothly and my only disappointment is the lack of support and documentation.