Infura Now Supports WebSocket Connections for Arbitrum, Optimism, and Avalanche

Explore Infura's new WebSocket offerings for Arbitrum, Optimism, and Avalanche! Learn how they elevate your blockchain development experience.

At Infura, we are constantly evolving to meet the dynamic needs of the blockchain development community. We're excited to announce significant enhancements to our services, including the introduction of WebSockets for the Arbitrum, Optimism, and Avalanche networks and improved performance for Ethereum WebSockets.

New WebSocket Offerings: Arbitrum, Optimism, and Avalanche

Our commitment to providing comprehensive and cutting-edge solutions has led us to expand our WebSocket offerings. Developers can now access WebSockets for Arbitrum, Optimism, and Avalanche, broadening the scope of their blockchain applications.

Access to endpoints is accessible after you enable the networks from your API key. Click the 'Websockets' button to get the authenticated WSS URLs.

Improved Ethereum WebSocket Performance

Recently, we also released performance enhancements to our Ethereum WebSocket protocol. These improvements are designed to optimize support for long-lasting sessions and minimize latency, ensuring swift announcements of new blocks and logs. 

While making these enhancements, we benchmarked the performance of our updated Ethereum WebSocket protocol against our previous implementation. The tests consistently showed that our updated protocol announces blocks and logs significantly faster than before.

Why Do WebSockets Matter? 

Web3 developers can utilize both WebSockets and JSON-RPC to connect to Infura for building blockchain applications. However, the choice between these technologies depends on the specific needs of the distributed application being developed.

WebSockets provide a continuous connection essential for real-time data feeds in modern decentralized applications. By using Infura WebSockets, applications can instantly receive notifications about new blocks, transactions, or other relevant blockchain events. This enables the development of responsive applications that sync with the blockchain's near-real-time state.

On the other hand, JSON-RPC's request-response model is better suited for applications requiring historical data retrieval, complex transaction execution, or batch processing. It offers flexibility and interoperability, making it an excellent option for developers working with blockchain networks.

Often, distributed applications combine these technologies: using WebSocket subscriptions for event notifications and JSON-RPC for additional data retrieval or transaction submissions. This approach minimizes redundant requests for updates, reducing delays and improving the real-time interactivity of applications.

Build with WebSockets on Arbitrum, Optimism, and Avalanche

Infura's enhanced Ethereum WebSockets support, along with new WebSocket capabilities for Arbitrum, Optimism, and Avalanche, can significantly enhance the user experience of your decentralized applications. By leveraging Infura’s WebSockets, you can make your application more scalable while reducing network overhead and latency.

Learn how to effectively use WebSockets and ensure they are a vital part of your Web3 development toolkit by exploring our documentation.