2024 Update

Hello everyone! It's been such a long time since the last post. StreamHub development shutdown a long while ago but I wanted to give some updates as I see the blog still gets some traffic. 

At the time StreamHub was under active development, the Web Sockets standards and web browsers were still changing and developing at a rapid pace. In fact, the Web Sockets API was still subject to breaking changes upon each release. Now, in 2024, it's unlikely that StreamHub still works. However, if you're interesting in checking it out, the source code, including the source code for the license generator, is available below:

• StreamHub Server source code
• License GUI
• StreamHub Java Adapter

To be clear, it is completely unsupported, use at your own risk, but it may be of interest to a few.

If you're looking for a something similar to StreamHub in 2024, I suggest you check out Socket IO. That would be my number one pick, however, if you're looking for alternatives, have a look at these:

1. SignalR: A real-time communication library for ASP.NET and .NET Core applications. It supports WebSockets and falls back to other techniques for older browsers.
2. SockJS: A JavaScript library that provides a WebSocket-like object, offering cross-browser compatibility and fallback options. It can be used with various server-side languages.
3. Pusher: A hosted service for adding real-time functionality to web and mobile apps. It supports multiple programming languages and platforms.
4. Ably: A scalable real-time messaging infrastructure that supports various programming languages and provides features like message persistence and push notifications.
5. WebSocket API: The native WebSocket implementation supported by modern browsers, which can be used with any server-side language that supports WebSocket connections.
6. Phoenix Channels: Part of the Phoenix framework for Elixir, offering real-time communication capabilities.
7. NATS: A cloud-native messaging system that supports various programming languages and provides publish-subscribe functionality.

Why did StreamHub shutdown?

StreamHub as a product didn't have a huge amount of customers, and with free open source alternatives becoming more mature at the time, the potential market was only getting smaller. As such, it became difficult to pay the bills and the StreamHub team had to go to work elsewhere.

What next for StreamHub?

There are no plans to revive StreamHub, however the team is always creating, so watch this space for updates.

Thanks for reading! Here's to a great 2025!

New Community Edition License for 2011

A new Community Edition License for 2011 has been released. This extends the Community license until 2012. Download below:

• 2011 Community License

Instructions for use

Copy the license.txt to the folder where StreamHub server is started from - StreamHub reads the license file from its current working directory. If you have an existing license.txt in that directory we recommend you back this file up before overwriting it.

Happy 2011 from all the StreamHub Team!!

HTML 5 Web Sockets arrives in StreamHub 2.2.9

Some of you may have noticed HTML 5 Web Sockets sneaking into 2.2.x releases of StreamHub but now it's officially here. 2.2.9 brings full Web Sockets functionality for browsers that support it. Comet will still be supported for older browsers and those that don't yet support the latest HTML 5 standards. Detection of the most reliable connection-type is built-in, with transparent failover to Comet and Ajax Polling. This means you don't need to make any changes to your existing code to start using Web Sockets, StreamHub will automatically detect the best connection-type for you.

Current Web Sockets Support in Browsers

• Google Chrome
• Apple Safari 5+
• Firefox 4 Beta
• Apple iOS 4.2+ for iPad & iPhone

What else is new in 2.2.9?

2.2.9 has come a long way since the popular stable 2.0.x branch. So, here's a complete set of release notes for those looking to upgrade from 2.0.x.

• Fixed (2.2.9): Web Socket handshake intermittent issues
• Fixed (2.2.8): Expensive debug string operation being performed on all log levels
• Fixed (2.2.7): Firefox 3.x Comet reconnection bug when hitting 300k limit
• Fixed (2.2.7): MAX_CLIENT_LIMIT was disconnecting most recent WebSocket client
• (2.2.7): HTTP file handling improvements
• (2.2.7): Logging improvements
• (2.2.7): Upgrade to support secure Web Socket handshakes
• (2.2.4): Performance improvements
• (2.2.4): HTML5 Web Sockets support
• (2.2.4): Ability to monitor number of connected clients via JMX
• Fixed (2.2.4): Possible NPE in Dispatcher
• (2.1.x-beta): Numerous performance improvements to the HTTP handling.
• (2.1.x-beta): Transparent failover to polling connections where firewalls/proxies prevent full duplex streaming.
• Fixed (2.1.x-beta): Ajax adapter was not reconnecting if no serverList was specified.
• Fixed (2.1.x-beta): 'Stopping polling' log message appeared even when not using a polling connection type.
• (2.1.x-beta): More control over HTTP headers for pages and comet content.

Important note when upgrading from 2.0.x

If you migrate any existing Ajax SDK apps from 2.0.x to 2.1 or 2.2 you will need to change your connection URLs to incorporate the new streamhub context. For example, if previously you were using:

hub.connect("http://localhost:7979/");

You will now need to use:

hub.connect("http://localhost:7979/streamhub/");

Get the latest version

Find the latest 2.1.12-beta available to download below aswell as links to the most up-to-date documentation and tutorials:

• Download StreamHub HTML5 Web Sockets & Comet Server 2.2.9
• Latest 2.2.9 Javadoc
• Latest 2.2.9 AJAX SDK docs
• Getting Started with Reverse Ajax & Comet

More coming soon, as usual, subscribe to this blog or follow us on twitter to keep up to date.