Setting Up Plain WebSocket Communication in Spring Boot

Lejdi Prifti
5 min readSep 5, 2024

In this article, we’ll explore how to set up plain WebSocket communication between two Spring Boot services.

By Markus Winter

About WebSocket

WebSocket is a communication protocol that enables full-duplex, bidirectional communication over a single, persistent connection.

Unlike traditional HTTP communication, where the client requests information and the server responds, WebSocket allows both the client and server to send and receive messages independently, without having to repeatedly open and close connections.

There are two kinds of WebSocket settings you may create: plain and using SockJS.

Using plain WebSockets offers more direct control over the implementation, lower latency, and no extra dependencies. This approach suits environments where WebSocket support is assured and most importantly, the performance is a priority.

Architecture

The diagram illustrates the basic setup of WebSocket communication between our server and client.

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Lejdi Prifti

Software Engineer @ Linfa | Building daily | Sharing insights