How websockets can be faster than a simple HTTP request?

Question

You still need to send requests from your computer to the website's server and back and forth. How can websockets make it so much faster?

Answer 1

WebSocket is a extension for HTTP. For low-latency communication Web Sockets are better.

Also check this article

How can websockets make it so much faster?

To establish a WebSocket connection, the client and server upgrade from the HTTP protocol to the WebSocket protocol during their initial handshake, as shown in the following example:-

GET /text HTTP/1.1
Upgrade: WebSocket
Connection: Upgrade
Host: www.websocket.org

HTTP/1.1 101 WebSocket Protocol Handshake
Upgrade: WebSocket
Connection: Upgrade
…

Once established, WebSocket data frames can be sent back and forth between the client and the server in full-duplex mode. Both text and binary frames can be sent full-duplex, in either direction at the same time. The data is minimally framed with just two bytes. In the case of text frames, each frame starts with a 0x00 byte, ends with a 0xFF byte, and contains UTF-8 data in between. WebSocket text frames use a terminator, while binary frames use a length prefix.

Web Sockets represents the next evolution of web communications—a full-duplex, bidirectional communications channel that operates through a single socket over the Web. HTML5 Web Sockets provides a true standard that you can use to build scalable, real-time web applications. In addition, since it provides a socket that is native to the browser, it eliminates many of the problems Comet solutions are prone to. Web Sockets removes the overhead and dramatically reduces complexity.

Latency comparison:-

Summary:-

Web Sockets provides an enormous step forward in the scalability of the real-time web. As you have seen in this article, HTML5 Web Sockets can provide a 500:1 or—depending on the size of the HTTP headers—even a 1000:1 reduction in unnecessary HTTP header traffic and 3:1 reduction in latency. That is not just an incremental improvement; that is a revolutionary jump—a quantum leap!