Real-time polling app

Create a poll, share a link, and watch votes update live for everyone in the room.

Why build it

WebSockets, shared state and abuse prevention in a product small enough to understand fully.

Features

• Create a poll with 2 to 8 options
• Shareable link
• Live vote counts over WebSockets
• One vote per browser
• Poll closes automatically

Roadmap

1. p1

   Server

   • Express or Fastify server with a poll store
   • REST endpoints to create and read polls
   • Validate all input with zod
2. p2

   Realtime

   • Add WebSocket rooms per poll
   • Broadcast vote changes
   • Reconnect with backoff on the client
3. p3

   Fair voting

   • Enforce one vote per browser with a cookie token
   • Rate limit votes per IP
   • Explain the limits honestly in the UI
4. p4

   Ship

   • Persist polls to Postgres or SQLite
   • Load test with 200 simulated clients
   • Deploy to a host that supports WebSockets

Common pitfalls

• Trusting vote counts sent by the client
• Choosing a serverless host that cannot hold WebSocket connections

Skills you will practise

• WebSockets
• Input validation
• Rate limiting
• Load testing