WebSockets and Heroku: pushing data to the user

Question

I am build a real time web application using Ruby on Rails and Heroku seems to be the best option for hosting it.

I would prefer pushing new data to the user, when it becomes available, instead of pulling it by sending AJAX requests every few seconds.

Pusher seems to be suggested by Heroku for a such kind of job, but it has some limitations, brings additional costs, and makes you dependent on an external API.

Is there any other option to use WebSockets on Heroku?

Answer 1

If you wanna do websockets you need to use a different server besides rails. And since your on heroku you don't have the flexibility.

Optionally you can host a websockets enabled node server on an ec2 micro instance. Then in your rails app when you want to push -- do a request to the node server and the it will go to the clients.

Answer 2

If you only need one way communication try using Server Side events.