Enterprise · WebSocket

Test real-time apps
like you test REST.

Automate chat-bots, live dashboards, trading feeds, and multiplayer games — all with unified Karate syntax. Multiple concurrent connections, custom message types, and flow control, out of the box.

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Also available: Kafka · gRPC

websocket-test.feature

Feature: Chat application tests

Scenario: Two users exchange messages
  # Connect as Alice
  Given ws 'wss://chat.example.com/room/42'
  And header Authorization = 'Bearer ' + tokenA
  When send
    { type: 'join', user: 'alice' }
  Then receive 3000
  And match receive ==
    { type: 'joined', users: '#array' }

  # Send a chat message
  Given send
    { type: 'msg', text: 'Hello!' }
  When receive 2000
  Then match receive ==
    { type: 'ack', id: '#notnull' }

WebSocket-Specific Features

Real-time testing without the real-time pain

Multiple Connections

Open dozens of WebSocket connections in the same test. Simulate multi-user scenarios like chat rooms, collaborative docs, or trading floors.

Custom Message Types

Text, binary, or custom wire formats — Karate handles conversion automatically. Bring your own protocol on top of raw WebSocket frames.

Flow Control

Built-in backpressure handling. Set timeouts per receive, buffer messages, and assert on ordering guarantees without threading bugs.

WSS & Auth

TLS-secured WebSocket (wss://), bearer tokens, cookies, and custom headers on the handshake — production-grade auth out of the box.

Mix HTTP & WebSocket

Authenticate via REST, open a WebSocket with the returned token, send messages, verify the database via another REST call — one file.

Load Testing

Re-use your WebSocket tests as Gatling load tests. Simulate thousands of concurrent users on your real-time infrastructure.

When to Use WebSocket Testing

Perfect for real-time teams

Chat & messaging apps

Validate message delivery, ordering, acknowledgments, typing indicators, and presence across multiple concurrent users.

Live dashboards & telemetry

Assert on real-time metric streams, stock tickers, IoT telemetry, and observability pipelines — with timing and ordering guarantees.

Trading & financial feeds

Test order books, price updates, and market data streams. Verify latency SLAs and message ordering under load.

Collaborative apps & games

Test multiplayer state sync, collaborative editing conflicts, and presence systems — with multiple simulated clients in one scenario.

Licensing

Karate WebSocket requires an Enterprise runtime license for CI/CD deployment and the Pro tier of IntelliJ or VS Code plugins for development.

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Test real-time apps like you test REST.