Ask HN: Fastest way to build live chat?
I'm working on an app requiring live one-to-one chat amongst users, presence, and other real-time functionality.
My app uses rails/backbone.js/MongoDB, and for real-time stuff I've been using PusherApp, but it has limitations--the biggest one being no easy way for my server to know which users are online (to indicate presence).
What's the fastest way to get this sort of thing done?
I've been looking into learning how to write something in Node.js/socket.io, or use a service like BeaconPush, PubNub, or Kwwika (and keeping my code in ruby w/ EventMachine).
4 comments
[ 640 ms ] story [ 3870 ms ] threadBeaconpush is a good alternative for doing this. We support user presence and you can use the API to find out what users are connected. You can even log out users from the API.
We have a contributed Ruby library (called Dimma) made by one of our users. Don't think it's EventMachine based though. Read more at https://github.com/Burgestrand/Dimma
node.js with socket.io is also a nice alternative. Played with it somewhat myself and I like it! But hosting it yourself will make you deal with scaling, deploying, uptime and hosting in general. Not exactly stuff you want to focus on when developing things on a tight schedule.
So if you're asking me, I'd naturally say Beaconpush (http://beaconpush.com) :)
Any idea when webhooks will be ready? (That would seem to me to be the easiest way to keep the server up-to-speed with who's online?)