https://apicourse.com/tags/real-time/ Recent content in Real-Time on API Course Hugo en-us Sat, 02 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://apicourse.com/real-time-apis-websockets-server-sent-events-and-long-polling/ Sat, 02 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://apicourse.com/real-time-apis-websockets-server-sent-events-and-long-polling/ <p>Standard HTTP is a request-response protocol: the client sends a request, the server sends a response, the connection closes or is returned to a pool. This model is efficient for most API use cases. It is the wrong model when the server needs to push data to the client without waiting for a client request — live dashboards, chat applications, collaborative editing, real-time notifications, trading feeds. Three patterns exist to bridge this gap, each with a different complexity profile and a different set of constraints.</p> https://apicourse.com/webhooks-vs-polling-when-to-push-when-to-pull/ Sat, 02 May 2026 00:00:00 +0000 https://apicourse.com/webhooks-vs-polling-when-to-push-when-to-pull/ <p>Every integration eventually confronts the same question: how does my system learn that something changed in someone else&rsquo;s system? The two answers are polling and webhooks. Polling asks the question repeatedly. Webhooks get notified when the answer changes. Understanding which approach fits a given situation — and why — shapes everything from latency and cost to reliability and operational complexity.</p> <h2 id="polling-the-default-that-mostly-works">Polling: The Default That Mostly Works</h2> <p>Polling is the simpler mental model. Your application sends requests to an API on a schedule — every 30 seconds, every minute, every hour — and checks whether anything has changed since the last check. If yes, process the changes. If no, wait for the next interval.</p>