Server-Sent Events Beat WebSockets for 95% of Real-Time Apps (Here's Why) - DEV Community

Everyone defaults to WebSockets for real-time features. Most shouldn't. The reality: 95% of "real-time" applications only need server → client updates. Chat notifications. Live dashboards. Stock tickers. Log streams. AI responses. WebSockets give you bidirectional communication. But bidirectional comes with a tax: complexity, resource overhead, scaling challenges, debugging nightmares. Server-Sent Events (SSE) do one thing: stream data from server to client. They do it brilliantly. And for most applications, that's all you need.