Case Study: Wooclap achieves reliable, low-latency, massively scalable realtime classroom interactions with Ably

Wooclap’s technology turns smartphones into an exceptional learning tool, enabling realtime interactions in the classroom

Wooclap is an app-based EdTech platform that turns smartphones into realtime classroom interaction tools, used by institutions like UCL and NYU. As usage grew rapidly, Wooclap struggled to scale its WebSocket infrastructure—handling more than 20M messages over a few hours and peaks of 20k+ messages/second—while meeting strict requirements for reliability, low latency and burst handling, so it turned to Ably to manage its realtime needs.

Ably was implemented via Ably Realtime on the client and the Ably REST API (node.js SDK) on the backend, bringing features like connection state recovery, node performance telemetry and a burstable Pub/Sub architecture. The Ably integration ensured missed messages are delivered after brief disconnects (e.g., 30 seconds offline), handled large bursts reliably, and freed Wooclap’s engineers to focus on product development rather than scaling infrastructure—delivering the speed, reliability and scalability Wooclap required.

Wooclap

Jonathan Alzetta

Co-Founder and CTO