title: WebSockets versus Long-Polling versus TCP Scalability/Ease of Use
body: <p>I'm writing a backend for a mobile web-app based in Java and I was wondering as far as scalability and ease of use go what are the pros and cons associated with using WebSockets versus Long-Polling solutions like comet. Another option would also be implementing my own solution using TCP. From what I've read it seems that you need to run Long-polling solutions on dedicated servers as they don't run well in Tomcat/Jetty when you start dealing with large numbers of users. WebSockets sounds like it scales better. Are there any disadvantages to going with Websockets over Comet or should I just resort to my own solution using TCP connections? I'm looking for the option that uses the least traffic.</p>