What about cost? That doesn't get mentioned much in Blazor articles but when I checked, Blazor server requires SignalR for every single person who views your site (not just clicks buttons), which means you have to have capacity not just for how many people take action at the same time, but how many people actually visit your site at the same time.
According to Azure SignalR pricing, 1 unit can serve 1000 connections and costs approx $50/month. This charge is in addition to your web application plan which is also going to be a minimum of around $50/month. That is $100/month for 1000 visitors and an additional $50 per block of 1000 visitors.
As a startup, that seems like an expensive proposition. Can you speak to the real world cost of running a blazor server app? I love the tech, and it's great, but I'm concerned it may not be cost effective outside of an intranet site. Am I understanding the cost model correctly?
2x Microsoft MVP, Google Developer Expert, and Twilio Champion who works in DevRel at Microsoft. International speaker, blogger, open source contributor, and approachable developer community advocate.
Location
Milwaukee, WI
Education
Bachelor of Science, Computer Information Systems - Engineering
Hi Wes, this is a great point to bring up - I touched base with Daniel Roth on this. Here is what he said:
With Blazor Server you are using your server resources to handle running the UI for each user that uses your site. Basically your offloading work from the client to the server.
The pricing for Azure SignalR is based on concurrent users. That's important. You can have a lot more users per month, but they probably aren't all using the site at the same time.
If you don't want to take on this cost, the Blazor WebAssembly is the way to go. Blazor WebAssembly offloads the work down to the client. In fact, Blazor WebAssembly apps can be deployed as static sites. Azure Static Web Apps is a great serverless hosting solution for Blazor WebAssembly apps.
The choice is yours, and I can tell you that I'll be using Wasm over the server-side option. But I may still choose to add SignalR functionality for other aspects of my apps.
For further actions, you may consider blocking this person and/or reporting abuse
We're a place where coders share, stay up-to-date and grow their careers.
What about cost? That doesn't get mentioned much in Blazor articles but when I checked, Blazor server requires SignalR for every single person who views your site (not just clicks buttons), which means you have to have capacity not just for how many people take action at the same time, but how many people actually visit your site at the same time.
According to Azure SignalR pricing, 1 unit can serve 1000 connections and costs approx $50/month. This charge is in addition to your web application plan which is also going to be a minimum of around $50/month. That is $100/month for 1000 visitors and an additional $50 per block of 1000 visitors.
As a startup, that seems like an expensive proposition. Can you speak to the real world cost of running a blazor server app? I love the tech, and it's great, but I'm concerned it may not be cost effective outside of an intranet site. Am I understanding the cost model correctly?
Hi Wes, this is a great point to bring up - I touched base with Daniel Roth on this. Here is what he said:
The choice is yours, and I can tell you that I'll be using Wasm over the server-side option. But I may still choose to add SignalR functionality for other aspects of my apps.