It enables real-time, bi-directional communication between web clients and servers.

The main implementation consists of two parts: a client that runs in the browser and a server for Node.js.

Socket.IO primarily uses the WebSocket protocol with polling as a fallback option, while providing the same interface.

[5] Although it can be used simply as a wrapper for WebSockets, it provides many additional features such as heartbeats and timeouts.

[5] It can be installed with the npm (Node Package Manager).