Even if you don&#x27;t need sub-second updates polling is still very wasteful. Your typical HTTP header is 700-800 bytes, so every 100,000 requests you&#x27;re sending 75 megabytes of data you don&#x27;t need to.<p>Websockets require 2 bytes, so those same 100,000 requests send only 200 kilobytes of additional data. Also it&#x27;s worth noting that with Websockets data is only sent when there is new data to send. Saving you even more bandwidth.<p>Plus with services like Pubnub &amp; Pusher websockets are really simply to get started with now as well. I would argue they&#x27;re actually easier to use than polling.