andrewammerlaan@riseup.net
Andrew Ammerlaan
What is websockets?
websockets is a library for building WebSocket servers and clients in Python with a focus on correctness and simplicity.
Built on top of asyncio, Python's standard asynchronous I/O framework, it provides an elegant coroutine-based API.
Why should I use websockets?
The development of websockets is shaped by four principles:
Simplicity: all you need to understand is msg = await ws.recv() and await ws.send(msg); websockets takes care of managing connections so you can focus on your application.
Robustness: websockets is built for production; for example it was the only library to handle backpressure correctly before the issue became widely known in the Python community.
Quality: websockets is heavily tested. Continuous integration fails under 100% branch coverage. Also it passes the industry-standard Autobahn Testsuite.
Performance: memory use is configurable. An extension written in C accelerates expensive operations. It's pre-compiled for Linux, macOS and Windows and packaged in the wheel format for each system and Python version.
Documentation is a first class concern in the project. Head over to Read the Docs and see for yourself.
Why shouldn't I use websockets?
If you prefer callbacks over coroutines: websockets was created to provide the best coroutine-based API to manage WebSocket connections in Python. Pick another library for a callback-based API.
If you're looking for a mixed HTTP / WebSocket library: websockets aims at being an excellent implementation of RFC 6455: The WebSocket Protocol and RFC 7692: Compression Extensions for WebSocket. Its support for HTTP is minimal — just enough for a HTTP health check.
If you want to use Python 2: websockets builds upon asyncio which only works on Python 3. websockets requires Python ≥ 3.6.1.
aaugustin/websockets
websockets