[Matthias247]

The idea here is that http provides something like request/response semantics, methods, path, status code, etc - which are all also useful for gRPC. Websockets provide none of that - they are just message streams.

Websockets over http/2 are a new thing, and haven’t even been available at the time gRPC incepted.

[the_mitsuhiko]

I'm not sure if websockets over HTTP/2 are actually a new thing. Firefox implemented support years ago but it was disabled almost immediately afterwards because it doesn't work with proxies and has been disabled still. I think the only engine implementing it is Chrome.

As far as I know for HTTP/3 there is no way to use websockets yet.

[stefan_]

That is their whole point. That is why they exist. Dumb reliable pipe, please keep your silly semantics away.

[latch]

Hardly dumb. They include a variable length, payload masking, their own layer of fragmentation, different message type, validation (txt vs bin) and an extension framework.