However SignalR does not give you access to a raw websocket, in the same sense that socket.io does not give you one. Both are higher level abstractions that can use websockets as a transport, but are not restricted to them. If you want to run a custom protocol on plain websockets, e.g. because it's already well-defined what the other peer speaks/understands, then both are not applicable. If you don't care whether your realtime application is portable to another framework then yes, SignalR and socket.io are very viable solutions.