Does PubNub use WebSockets and/or XMPP under the hood?

Question

Couldn't find a clear answer to either:

WebSockets: There is support for WebSockets (http://www.pubnub.com/websockets/) and socket.io, however do the other SDKs use web sockets?

XMPP: Does PubNub use it as a communication protocol?

Airglow

Answer 1

PubNub WebSockets and/or XMPP

Update 2019 🌟 PubNub is planning to add additional protocols. MQTT is supported today mqtt.pubnub.com, additionally we will be adding WebSockets and SEE and connectionless push with UDP.

At PubNub we use many protocols in our Client SDKs starting with an always-on forever lived TCP Socket. Our TTL policy on TCP Sockets is unlimited. We provide the best protocol and we roll in updates under the covers so developers don't have to sweat the details of how messages are delivered.

The PubNub Data Stream Network believes in a protocol independent open mobile web; meaning that we will use the best protocol to get connectivity through any environment. Protocols, like WebSockets, can get tripped up by cell tower switching, double NAT environments, and even some anti-virus software or proxy boarder authorities.

PubNub provides client libraries specifically so we can auto-switch the protocol and remove socket-level complexities making it easy for developers to build apps that can communicate in realtime.

PubNub has deployed a variety of protocols over time, like WebSockets, MQTT, COMET, BOSH, long polling and others. We are exploring currently prototyping future designs using SPDY, HTTP 2.0, and others. The bottom line is that PubNub will work in every network environment, and has very low network bandwidth overhead, as well as low battery drain on mobile devices compared to connection based push implementations.

Forecourse

Thanks for the detailed answer! Mind elaborating a bit on the reasons why you guys avoided XMPP? XMPP seems to be used by facebook/google/etc, and is the first thing people think about when implementing a chat – Airglow

XMPP is too chatty for large groups of users and we wanted to optimize our signaling by reducing the chattiness between client/server. We have tunable application layer pings and no-ops on a per API key basis depending on the tenancy of the LAN and Cell Tower Density. – Forecourse

@PubNub is there a way to fine tune your application layer so as to enable XMPP on a per API key basis? What does one need to do to have whatsapp/facebook like message delivery reliability? – Marte

Answer = PubNub SDKs. You'll receive Global Store-and-Forward Multi Data Center message delivery and reliability. – Forecourse