Server Push With rails options

Question

I am trying to build a rails application which requires a "server push" functionality ie Comet .

I started looking for options I have found three and tried one of them:

1. Juggernaut : I tried it, am not entirely satisfied/comfortable though, has some browser issues with Opera and probably with Flash 10 ( I have tried it for about an hour so .. so my judgement might not be entirely right).

2. Orbited

3. Shooting Star

   2 & 3 are both Comet based while Juggernaut uses Flash xmlsocket etc. for the server push.

which one of these to use or basically what should be the criterion I should judge these options on.. people on both sides say that they are better .. and thats confusing...

Answer 1

The basic criteria for deciding which of these you want to use is what technology you want to support and how good the compatibility needs to be.

I personally prefer Juggernaut as it is very simple to use and the flash device is less hacky and more stable at maintaining the connection than Comet. However, the flash requirement does cause minor compatibility issues (Opera as you mentioned).

I have not seen any development on Shooting Star for a long long time, so I'd say it's probably not a good choice.

If you are on the fence, you should definitely try Orbited. It's actually written in python, but it's quite capable and supports a lot of different protocols. They have some good documentation, it's pretty easy to set up, and I've found it to be quite reliable.