Specializing Websocket connections between "read-only" (subscribe) vS "write-only" (publish)

[dsidirop]

Quick question just to be sure because I couldn't find any explicit information about this in the official docs ... (sorry if this has been answered elsewhere - feel free to point out any links)

In regard to best programming practices for a single client connecting to nats-servers using websocket:

Would it make sense to keep 2 connections up for this client:

• one to .Subscribe()
• and a separate one to .Publish() messages

I'm simply exploring whether the nats-server optimizes the connections for these two cases to make the most out of them.

I'm aware of the following facts:

• That allowing remote clients over the web to publish messages to nats directly is something that in principle mandates tremendous caution
• That having 2 connections instead of 1 per client will strain resources in the server so there needs to be good justification for this approach

Thanks in advance!

[derekcollison]

Similar to TCP, websockets can handle bi-directional activity and we recommend folks to start with one connection. Since it is a single connection there could be head of line blocking, mostly from the system to your app (subscriptions). So if you have multiple subscriptions and might encounter latency sensitive processing that could be affected by head of line blocking, then move subscriptions across multiple connections.