[zeromq-dev] ZeroMQ for a Real Time API

[Justin Karneges]

On Sunday, December 30, 2012 01:50:10 PM Marinho Brandao wrote:
> well, I'm new using ZeroMQ, in fact I have followed the news since the
> first release but never used it in real cases (only testing).
> 
> In the project I work, we have a few APIs, using OAuth2.0 and REST/JSON
> standards, and now we are gonna create a new API for real time purposes.
> 
> After some research on Storm, XMPP, AMQP, WebSockets, SSE, etc. I'm feeling
> pretty confident ZeroMQ is the best way to make it, but I haven't seen
> anybody talking about it anywhere I searched for.
> 
> So, the question is: is there any trap I can't see? Why nobody is talking
> about it?
> 
> I know it's still a bit complicated to supply an HTTP/browser compatible
> API over ZeroMQ, but in this my case there's no need for HTTP/browser at
> all.

ZeroMQ is not designed for access by third parties. Authentication, 
encryption, firewalls, and maliciously crafted packets are all problems you may 
face with having ZeroMQ as your point of entrance. If you want to use ZeroMQ 
internally (because it's awesome), you're best off gatewaying to the outside 
world through a standard protocol such as HTTP. The Mongrel2 and Zerogw web 
servers can be helpful in this case. Or you could do webhooks using Zurl.

Disclaimer and self-promotion: I run fanout.io, a service that saves you the 
trouble of setting up this kind of thing. You might check it out.

Justin