Connect with iOS and Android clients to SockJS Backend

Question

I'm developing WebSocket messaging backend using Spring WebSockets, which uses SockJS + STOMP protocol. The reason why not to use plain WebSockets is because I will need to leverage security integration that SockJS provides in Spring WebSockets and also other neat features from SockJS, such as rooms, subscriptions, etc. I was wondering if this is a good option to use so that mobile (iOS and Android) and Web client apps can easily connect to the backend server and perform messaging. If yes, then what libraries I can use for iOS and Android.

On SockJS GitHub page they are also listing available client libraries, but no iOS nor Android. So, I'm wondering if SockJS is even worth to use just because of that.

I found that for iOS client Primus-Objc (GitHub page) library claiming that they can connect to native WebSockets, Socket.IO, SockJS or perhaps engine.io. is that a true statement? And event if that's true, what about the quality of that library?

And event if it is ok to use SockJS on the back, then would it be also possible to show an example code for iOS and Android so that I can perform a proof of concept on mobile devices?

If SockJS is not a good option for me, then would it be better than to build my messaging app with Socket.io + Node.js (using JavaScript). Socket.io seems to me have all needed client libraries for iOS (official library by Socket.IO guys) and Android (official library by Socket.IO guys).

Another option can be to use Netty-Socket.io library and build each endpoint manually without any help from Spring Framework (which I'm considering to use) but there is small challenge that I'll have to tackle, that is security. Somebody actually already tried to do it (the same author asking question on the official Netty-Socket.IO Github page) but looks like he didn't have a luck in solving it yet.

Answer 1

Maybe it's more than a year since the question was asked. But, because it's getting in the first results when Googling for SockJS+Android. So, I am posting my answer.

From my experience with a recent project I worked on, we were able to use a STOMP client - like the one here- to connect to Spring Websocket backend from native Android app.

And from the browser, you can still use SockJS client to gain across browsers compatibility to websockets with fallback.

A note to mention that when using only STOMP client to connect to native websocket the URL will be something like ws://mydomain/SockJSEndpoint/websocket, and when using SockJS client from the browser the URL will be like http://mydomain/SockJSEndpoint.

Answer 2

Please find below useful references related to your requirement for both iOS and Android

1. http://www.elabs.se/blog/66-using-websockets-in-native-ios-and-android-apps
2. https://www.cometchat.com/blog/ios-android-chat-mobile-sdk/
3. https://github.com/elabs/mobile-websocket-example

Answer 3

We have tested them, both Android-client (link) was given by @Amr K. Ismail and

this iOS-client (link) are suitable with Spring-SockJS-Server which has STOMP.