Real-time chat applications require bidirectional communication where the server can push messages to clients instantly without polling. With over 12 years of Node.js development experience since 2014 and as the creator of CoreUI, I’ve built numerous real-time applications with WebSockets. WebSockets provide full-duplex communication channels over a single TCP connection, perfect for chat, notifications, and live updates. The native ws library offers a lightweight WebSocket implementation for Node.js without the overhead of frameworks.