/plushcap/analysis/ably/websockets-horizontal-vs-vertical-scaling

Scaling live experiences: Horizontal vs vertical scaling for WebSockets

What's this blog post about?

The article discusses the challenges of scaling WebSocket infrastructure and the key decisions involved in planning for it. It explains that while delivering live experiences through WebSockets is relatively easy, scaling them can be complex due to their stateful nature. Vertical scaling focuses on increasing the capacity of individual machines, whereas horizontal scaling introduces more machines to handle changes in demand. The article also covers some technical challenges and solutions related to load balancing and data synchronization. It emphasizes that while horizontal scaling is the only sustainable way to expand WebSocket capacity, it requires extra work in maintaining infrastructure.

Company
Ably

Date published
Oct. 26, 2022

Author(s)
Ably

Word count
2751

Hacker News points
None found.

Language
English


By Matt Makai. 2021-2024.