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What is the difference between WebSocket and STOMP protocols?

What are the major differences between WebSocket and STOMP protocols?

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LancerSung Avatar asked Oct 20 '22 20:10

LancerSung


People also ask

Does STOMP use WebSocket?

In the Web browser with a custom WebSocketBy default, stomp. js will use the Web browser native WebSocket class to create the WebSocket. However it is possible to use other type of WebSockets by using the Stomp.

What is Stomp protocol used for?

STOMP is the Simple (or Streaming) Text Oriented Messaging Protocol. It uses a set of commands like CONNECT, SEND, or SUBSCRIBE to manage the conversation. STOMP clients, written in any language, can talk with any message broker supporting the protocol.

What protocols do WebSockets use?

The WebSocket protocol is an independent TCP-based protocol. Its only relationship to HTTP is that its handshake is interpreted by HTTP servers as an Upgrade request. By default the WebSocket protocol uses port 80 for regular WebSocket connections and port 443 for WebSocket connections tunneled over TLS [RFC2818].

What is the difference between a WebSocket and a socket?

WebSockets typically run from browsers connecting to Application Server over a protocol similar to HTTP that runs over TCP/IP. So they are primarily for Web Applications that require a permanent connection to its server. On the other hand, plain sockets are more powerful and generic.


4 Answers

This question is similar to asking the difference between TCP and HTTP. I shall still try to address your question, its natural to get confused between these two terms if you are beginning.

Short Answer

STOMP is derived on top of WebSockets. STOMP just mentions a few specific ways on how the message frames are exchanged between the client and the server using WebSockets.


Long Answer

WebSockets

It is a specification to allow asynchronous bidirectional communication between a client and a server. While similar to TCP sockets, it is a protocol that operates as an upgraded HTTP connection, exchanging variable-length frames between the two parties, instead of a stream.

STOMP

It defines a protocol for clients and servers to communicate with messaging semantics. It does not define any implementation details, but rather addresses an easy-to-implement wire protocol for messaging integrations. It provides higher semantics on top of the WebSockets protocol and defines a handful of frame types that are mapped onto WebSockets frames. Some of these types are...

  • connect
  • subscribe
  • unsubscribe
  • send (messages sent to the server)
  • message (for messages send from the server) BEGIN, COMMIT, ROLLBACK (transaction management)
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Nitin Kamate Avatar answered Oct 23 '22 03:10

Nitin Kamate


WebSocket does imply a messaging architecture but does not mandate the use of any specific messaging protocol. It is a very thin layer over TCP that transforms a stream of bytes into a stream of messages (either text or binary) and not much more. It is up to applications to interpret the meaning of a message.

Unlike HTTP, which is an application-level protocol, in the WebSocket protocol there is simply not enough information in an incoming message for a framework or container to know how to route it or process it. Therefore WebSocket is arguably too low level for anything but a very trivial application. It can be done, but it will likely lead to creating a framework on top. This is comparable to how most web applications today are written using a web framework rather than the Servlet API alone.

For this reason the WebSocket RFC defines the use of sub-protocols. During the handshake, the client and server can use the header Sec-WebSocket-Protocol to agree on a sub-protocol, i.e. a higher, application-level protocol to use. The use of a sub-protocol is not required, but even if not used, applications will still need to choose a message format that both the client and server can understand. That format can be custom, framework-specific, or a standard messaging protocol.

STOMP — a simple, messaging protocol originally created for use in scripting languages with frames inspired by HTTP. STOMP is widely supported and well suited for use over WebSocket and over the web.

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Anna Klein Avatar answered Oct 23 '22 01:10

Anna Klein


The WebSocket API enables web applications to handle bidirectional communications whereas STOMP is a simple text-orientated messaging protocol. A Bidirectional WebSocket allows a web server to initiate a new message to a client, rather than wait for the client to request updates. The message could be in any protocol that the client and server agree to.

The STOMP protocol is commonly used inside a web socket.

A good tutorial is STOMP Over WebSocket by Jeff Mesnill (2012)

STOMP can also be used without a websocket, e.g. over a Telnet connection or a message broking service.

And Raw WebSockets can be used without STOMP - Eg. Spring Boot + WebSocket example without STOMP and SockJs.

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intotecho Avatar answered Oct 23 '22 03:10

intotecho


Note: Others have well explained what are both WebSocket and STOMP, so I'll try to add the missing bits.

The WebSocket protocol defines two types of messages (text and binary), but their content is undefined.

STOMP protocol defines a mechanism for client and server to negotiate a sub-protocol (that is, a higher-level messaging protocol) to use on top of WebSocket to define following things:

  • what kind of messages each can send,
  • what the format is,
  • the content of each message, and so on.

The use of a sub-protocol is optional but, either way, the client and the server need to agree on some protocol that defines message content.

Reference

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Muhammad Waqas Dilawar Avatar answered Oct 23 '22 03:10

Muhammad Waqas Dilawar