ASP.NET SignalR is a library for ASP.NET developers that simplifies the process of adding real-time web functionality to applications. Real-time web functionality is the ability to have server code push content to connected clients instantly as it becomes available, rather than having the server wait for a client to request new data.
SignalR can be used to add any sort of "real-time" web functionality to your ASP.NET application. While chat is often used as an example, you can do a whole lot more. Any time a user refreshes a web page to see new data, or the page implements long polling to retrieve new data, it is a candidate for using SignalR. Examples include dashboards and monitoring applications, collaborative applications (such as simultaneous editing of documents), job progress updates, and real-time forms.
SignalR also enables completely new types of web applications that require high frequency updates from the server, for example, real-time gaming. For a great example of this, see the ShootR game.
SignalR provides a simple API for creating server-to-client remote procedure calls (RPC) that call JavaScript functions in client browsers (and other client platforms) from server-side .NET code. SignalR also includes API for connection management (for instance, connect and disconnect events), and grouping connections.
SignalR handles connection management automatically, and lets you broadcast messages to all connected clients simultaneously, like a chat room. You can also send messages to specific clients. The connection between the client and server is persistent, unlike a classic HTTP connection, which is re-established for each communication.
SignalR supports "server push" functionality, in which server code can call out to client code in the browser using Remote Procedure Calls (RPC), rather than the request-response model common on the web today.
SignalR applications can scale out to thousands of clients using Service Bus, SQL Server or Redis.
SignalR is open-source, accessible through GitHub.
SignalR uses the new WebSocket transport where available, and falls back to older transports where necessary. While you could certainly write your application using WebSocket directly, using SignalR means that a lot of the extra functionality you would need to implement will already have been done for you. Most importantly, this means that you can code your application to take advantage of WebSocket without having to worry about creating a separate code path for older clients. SignalR also shields you from having to worry about updates to WebSocket, since SignalR will continue to be updated to support changes in the underlying transport, providing your application a consistent interface across versions of WebSocket.
While you could certainly create a solution using WebSocket alone, SignalR provides all of the functionality you would need to write yourself, such as fallback to other transports and revising your application for updates to WebSocket implementations.
SignalR can be used to add any sort of "real-time" web functionality to your ASP.NET application. While chat is often used as an example, you can do a whole lot more. Any time a user refreshes a web page to see new data, or the page implements Ajax long polling to retrieve new data, is candidate for using SignalR.
It also enables completely new types of applications, that require high frequency updates from the server, e.g. real-time gaming. For a great example of this see the ShootR game
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