Chat application: node.js or APE?

Question

I want to create a chat application that will use php / codeigniter for browsing and user interface. I read a lot of stackoverflow posts that recommended node.js or socket.io. However, I also came across APE (Ajax Push Engine). I also know little about this, and I was wondering what to use.

I read on node.js and saw a lot of good things about this, but the main thing that worries me is that it is relatively new and does not have a lot of real-world sites that test / use it.

On the other hand, APE does. And it looks like node.js. But, as I said, I don’t know enough to find out which one to choose.

Which one is better to create a chat application?

Thanks!

Answer 1

Like you, I am not familiar with APE, however socket.io on node.js comes with a chat application as the main application example .

True, there are few sites using node.js. However, Socket.io is probably considered the Node "Killer App" and, therefore, has relatively much talk and work with it.

I assume APE has stable APIs, although perhaps this is not necessary for socket.io. Version 0.7 was a pretty broad API-changing update, for example. This may occur less frequently with the publication of socket.io spec .

Answer 2

I played a little with node.js, tried socket.io - but ended up making a big project with APE.

I think that, as always, the question arises of what you want to achieve. Just a comparison of the server parts: with node.js you get a machine that does nothing on its own, you need to write it yourself (or use libraries). With APE, channel and connection processing is already built into (compiled C). However, you need to assemble parts of your own logic from above using JS or use examples.

On the client side, socket.io provides a client infrastructure with three commands - and APE has APE_JSF, which handles connections (which gives more options than socket.io regarding channels)

Personally, I prefer APE, despite the lack of documentation for beginners. However, keep in mind that APE will not deliver files / images, it is not a complete Web server, but is optimized for use in real time, where it can handle concurrent users of ~ 10K.