Amazon CloudFront announces support for the WebSocket protocol

You can now use Amazon CloudFront for applications using the WebSocket protocol to provide improved performance and security to your end users.

WebSocket is a real-time communication protocol that provides bidirectional communication between a client (such as a browser) and a server over a long-held TCP connection. By using a persistent open connection, the client and the server can send real-time data to each other without the client having to frequently reinitiate connections checking for new data to exchange. WebSocket connections are often used in chat applications, collaboration platforms, multiplayer games, and financial trading platforms.

With CloudFront’s support for the WebSocket protocol, you can now consolidate your WebSocket traffic through the same CloudFront resource as your other dynamic and static content. You can also use CloudFront’s global edge network to terminate SSL/TLS handshakes for WebSocket connections closer to your users and leverage AWS’ optimized network to improve your application’s responsiveness and reliability. You also get comprehensive DDOS protection by mitigating attacks closer to the source through AWS Shield and AWS WAF being tightly integrated with CloudFront.

You can use WebSockets globally, and no additional configuration is needed to enable the WebSocket protocol within your CloudFront resource as it is now supported by default. There’s no additional charge for sending data over the WebSocket protocol. Standard CloudFront charges apply.

To learn more about using the WebSocket protocol in CloudFront, read our Developer Guide or visit our web page to get started.