Ohh I didn't even look in depth at the request. Thanks for the response!
I'd say ajax is probably the right way as far as polling for the data goes. Using web sockets for polling incredibly simple data doesn't seem necessary.
The benefit of using websockets is that each user's browser doesnt need to constantly be requesting the number of users from our server. If the number of users on the site hasnt changed, then with AJAX polling, its a wasted request. But with websockets there is no waste, the client gets pushed the updates when they happen from the server.
Having said all that, with the number of requests that we're getting at the moment, i dont think it makes much of a difference. Though im guessing if we got a lot more traffic, then websockets would probably reduce our server load.
Having said all that, with the number of requests that we're getting at the moment, i dont think it makes much of a difference. Though im guessing if we got a lot more traffic, then websockets would probably reduce our server load.