Socket.io VS peerjs

This is the path of ultimate control. You spin up a Node.js server, add the socket.io library for WebSocket communication, and use a Redis instance to manage connection state and pub/sub messaging across multiple server instances.

So far, we have created our server using express’ HTTP Server and also initialized our Socket.io using the server instance we created.

Another heavily dependent external library for Node.js apps is the ws or Socket.IO for client connections to real-time data feeds or interacting with other WebSocket servers.

-Socket.IO for real-time events

I've recently been tinkering away at a turn-based multiplayer browser game in my downtime. I'm a Typescript guy so my current tech stack is Next.js, Node.js, and ws[0] for WebSockets (though I'm thinking of switching over to socket.io[1] given how much more they provide out of the box).

Right now my main concern is how to handle continuous deployments without interrupting ongoing games (amongst other WebSocket challenges[2]). I was planning to deploy via Coolify, but am considering other options given that their zero downtime deploys still needs some love[3].

How would you approach building a turn-based multiplayer browser game in 2025?

[0] https://www.npmjs.com/package/ws

[1] https://www.npmjs.com/package/socket.io

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42816359

[3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43589794

In line 32 we have the socket.io editaData event which handles data editing in the server. When the user clicks edit in the client, the server searches for the data using the findIndex method. If it exists it updates the data in the crudData array then it broadcasts the edited data to the client.

Tools like Socket.IO and WebSockets significantly simplify the implementation of real-time communication between client and server.

To capture the test execution status, I wrote a custom karma reporter(a good resource) with which I was able to emit the test execution status back to the vscode extension. I am using socket.io to do this communication.

Building such experiences is already possible, using libraries such as socket.io and React Together. This blog post explains how to easily add real-time collaboration to an existing React app, using React Together.

Complexity: WebSockets require you to handle connection lifecycle events, such as errors and reconnections. While the code example I provided could suffice for simple use cases, more complex use cases might arise, like automatic reconnection and queueing messages sent by the client when the connection wasn't open. For that, you can either extend this code or use an external library like react-use-websocket for a relatively lightweight react implementation or socketio for both client and server SDKs.

Read more about Peerjs.

For solution #2 there is a much broader range of applications that are possible. Frameworks like Socket Supply Co and tools like PeerJS are also available. However designing a peer to peer application that is useful and accessible to ordinary users is going to be very hard.

config?: any;

Since we're not overriding it, we take the default. And `defaultConfig` leads us to: https://github.com/peers/peerjs/blob/c073252f879b57757f8a82d... which lists STUN & TURN servers.

… so it sure looks to me like it is using a TURN server…

look at https://peerjs.com that this the project is using.

this app is using peerjs to connect peers over a webrtc connection. check out thier docs for more info. with webrtc, things like file-transfer, should be very performant compared to cloud storage providers... especially over LAN. network speed doesnt seems to be an issue i have experienced.

I'm using the client-side PeerJS https://peerjs.com/ library for networking. As the name may imply, a direct connection is established between two peers using WebRTC via "handshake" through an intermediary server they host - and, they provide source for the server as well. I have found it to be quite reliable, thus far.

You kind of sound like a beginner. The browser APIs are a bit painful to work with. It might be easier to use PeerJS: https://peerjs.com/

If you want you can use Preact. PreactJS is a lightweight alternative to ReactJS, designed for high performance and compatibility. is often used in applications where performance is critical and has a small footprint.

This opens up a lot of neat possibilities, and fortunately I found a very easy JavaScript library for handling multiplayer called PeerJS. The way you can send packets from player to player is very simple and something even a beginner to JavaScript could understand.