Appwrite is an open-source, self-hosted Backend-as-a-Service written in PHP that aims to make app development easier with SDKs available in various programming languages. Prior to version 0.10.0 of the Appwrite API, applications could only communicate with our REST API. We decided we wanted to offer a real-time API to improve how we communicate. We decided to use a WebSocket server that would allow developers to stay connected to our servers and get real-time information as it was available. by Torsten Dittmann