WebRTC Security

A Comparison of WebSocket VS WebRTC

6 min read

June 22, 2023

In today’s digital landscape, virtual communication has become a vital component for most businesses with most of them utilising real-time communication and streaming to enhance communication.

As such, many online communication platforms leverage WebRTC and WebSocket to facilitate these features. WebRTC enables real-time peer-to-peer communication, while WebSocket provides bidirectional communication between clients and servers.

Table of Contents

What is WebRTC
Pros and cons of implementing WebRTC
What is WebSocket
Advantages and disadvantages of leveraging WebSocket
Key differences between WebRTC and WebSocket
When to use WebRTC
When to use WebSocket
When to use WebRTC together with WebSocket
Final thought

In this blog, we explore what the WebRTC technology and WebSocket protocol, their use cases, features and architecture is, and we also compare and contrast the two technologies.

What is WebRTC?

Web Real-Time Communication, or in short WebRTC, is a set of powerful technologies that enable real-time communication directly within a web browser.

WebRTC comprises three main components:

MediaStream

This component captures audio and video streams from a user's device, enabling real-time communication.

RTCPeerConnection

This establishes a direct peer-to-peer connection between two browsers, facilitating secure and efficient transmission of media streams.

RTCDataChannel

This component enables the exchange of arbitrary data between browsers, opening up possibilities for real-time collaboration.

What makes WebRTC superior to the other real-time communication technologies, is its ability to enable real-time communication within browsers without the need for any additional plugins or software installations - the Digital Samba’s API is a good example.

Get your project estimation

Contact our sales team today!

Advantages and disadvantages of implementing WebRTC

WebRTC offers several advantages that make it a compelling choice for real-time communication.

Pros of WebRTC

Peer-to-peer connections

WebRTC allows direct communication between browsers, eliminating the need for intermediaries and enabling faster, more efficient data transmission.

Real-time audio and video streaming

WebRTC provides native support for real-time streaming, enabling high-quality audio and video communication within web applications.

Built-in security features

WebRTC incorporates encryption and authentication mechanisms, ensuring secure and private communication.

However, WebRTC does have some limitations.

Cons of WebRTC

Limited browser support

While WebRTC is widely supported, variations in compatibility across different browsers and platforms can present challenges in reaching a broad user base.

NAT traversal complexities

Establishing direct connections between devices behind firewalls or NAT devices can be challenging, requiring additional configuration for seamless connectivity.

Bandwidth and resource utilisation

WebRTC's real-time streaming features can consume significant bandwidth and system resources, which may be a consideration in resource-constrained environments.

What is WebSocket?

WebSocket is a bidirectional communication protocol that allows real-time, full-duplex communication between clients and servers. Unlike traditional HTTP, which operates on a request-response model, WebSocket establishes a persistent connection, enabling efficient and continuous data exchange.

The architecture of WebSocket is based on a client-server model that aims at retaining persistent communication between a client and server. To establish a connection, the WebSocket requires the clients to initiate a handshake.

During this handshake, the client (browser or device) sends a request to upgrade its protocol from HTTP to a WebSocket protocol.

If the server approves the upgrade, a persistent connection that allows data to flow both ways (bidirectional) is established, enabling real-time communication and low-latency data transmission.

Advantages and disadvantages of

WebSocket provides several advantages that make it a popular choice for real-time communication:

Pros of WebSocket

Full-duplex communication

WebSocket enables simultaneous, bidirectional communication between clients and servers, allowing real-time data exchange without the need for repeated requests.

WebSocket low latency

With its persistent connection, WebSocket offers low-latency communication, ensuring quick and responsive updates in real-time applications.

Wide browser support

WebSocket enjoys broad support across modern web browsers, making them accessible for developers and users alike.

Cons of WebSocket

However, WebSocket does have some limitations:

Increased complexity in implementation

Compared to traditional HTTP, implementing WebSocket requires additional code and server-side support, which can increase the complexity of development.

Potential security concerns

As WebSocket enables direct communication between clients and servers, proper security measures, such as input validation and authentication, need to be implemented to prevent vulnerabilities.

Key differences between WebRTC and WebSocket

While WebRTC focuses on real-time audio, video streaming and video conferencing applications, WebSocket is primarily geared towards data communication, collaborative environments and real-time chat applications.

Here is a comparative breakdown of the key differences between WebRTC and WebSocket:

	WebRTC	WebSocket
Architecture	Real-time communication technology	Bidirectional communication protocol
Use case	Video conferencing, peer-to-peer communication	Real-time chat, collaborative environments
Latency	WebRTC Low-latency communication	WebSocket Low-latency communication
Video streaming	Native support for real-time video streaming	Primarily focused on data communication
Signalling	Requires signalling server for session establishment	Does not require explicit signalling
Firewall traversal	Incorporates NAT traversal techniques	May require additional configuration for NAT traversal
Scalability	Limited scalability due to peer-to-peer nature	Highly scalable with server-based architecture
Complexity	Can be complex to implement and manage	Relatively simpler implementation and management
Bandwidth usage	Efficient bandwidth utilisation for media streaming	Minimal overhead for data communication
Security	WebRTC implements encryption and authentication to protect data transmission across the internet.	WebSocket implements secure WebSocket connections with wss:// using SSL/TLS encryption solutions.

When to use WebRTC?

As mentioned above, WebRTC technology is an excellent choice for developers building applications that require real-time communication and streaming capabilities. You can group WebRTC applications into four broad categories

Conversational voice and video

the most popular implementation. Applications that need the ability to have a person communicate with others in real time and in a conversational manner. These will more often than not end up using WebRTC

Live streaming

while WebRTC isn’t the most popular choice for streaming, it is one of the best technologies available for low-latency live streaming. If you need to stream something to one or more users and maintain really low latency to enhance the interactivity for applications such as cloud gaming, live gambling or webinars, then WebRTC is the most efficient technology

Data transfer

you can send voice and video with WebRTC, but you can also send arbitrary data. This can be used to share huge files between machines with little need for server space for example. Or it can be used to create a BitTorrent-like experience within a video conferencing or collaborative platform.

Privacy

since WebRTC runs direct between browsers, it is sometimes used to enhance privacy. Doing this by simply not sending the media or data via servers at all

Use cases for WebSockets

WebSocket is well-suited for various implementations that need real-time, bidirectional communications. Let’s have a look at some of the scenarios where WebSocket can be implemented.

Real-time chat applications

Chat applications require real-time and instant messaging where users can send or receive chats instantly. As such, WebSocket is widely used in such Apps to enable instant messaging

Collaborative environments

Collaborative applications such as collaborative document editing and project management tools can also leverage WebSocket to enable real-time collaboration features

Applications requiring bidirectional communication

Applications such as financial trading platforms and real-time dashboards that require continuous and simultaneous data exchange between clients and servers can also leverage WebSocket’s full-duplex nature

When to use WebRTC together with WebSocket?

WebSocket and WebRTC work hand in hand to enhance communication features.

As mentioned above, WebRTC is primarily used to enable real-time communication between devices on the internet. However, for users to experience smooth and seamless video calls, chats and more, there has to be a server to coordinate the communication process among the devices. This coordination process is known as signalling.

Generally, signalling involves the transfer of crucial information between peers. Such information includes:

Media metadata like codecs and various media types
Network data such as IP addresses and ports
Session control messages that initiate and terminate communication

Although WebRTC facilitates real-time video conferencing and streaming features, it lacks the built-in standard signalling features. As a result, developers leverage other protocols to handle the signalling process. Here is where the WebSocket protocol comes into play.

Developers often opt for WebSocket to implement signalling in WebRTC owing to its efficient signalling mechanism to build applications such as bidirectional communication apps, collaborative environments or real-time chat applications.

FAQs

No, WebRTC is not a socket; it's a protocol for real-time communication between browsers.

WebSocket is a communication protocol for messages, while WebRTC is designed specifically for real-time video and audio communication.

No, WebRTC is not built on WebSockets; it uses its own protocols for real-time communication, though they can work together.

WebSockets are not used in all cases due to complexity, scalability concerns, and specific use case requirements.

Final thought

Digital Samba is a video conferencing API leveraging the power of WebRTC and WebSockets to enable high-quality video conferencing and collaboration applications. Our integrated approach allows developers to access the features of WebRTC and WebSockets using the Digital Samba video conferencing API in an easy to setup way.

With Digital Samba, your users will experience high-quality video communication as well as seamless data exchange within your digital communication application.

Upgrade your platform with Digital Samba’s video conferencing API and enjoy the benefits of WebRTC and WebSockets today.

Request a free consultation with our team

Improve your users’ experience with Digital Samba's WebRTC API-integrated video chat

Get a consultation

← Understanding WebRTC Security: Best Practices and Considerations

Unlocking the Power of Video Transcoding →