Show HN: Feato – Real-time feature flags without polling
2 comments
FeatBit originally used WebSocket. Later, we added a polling option based on customer requirements.
Out of curiosity, how do you handle this with Next.js deployed on Vercel?
Good question, and just to clarify the context.
Next.js / Vercel would typically be on the consumer side. Feato doesn’t rely on any server-side streaming in the client’s app.
The browser opens an SSE connection (via EventSource) directly to the Feato backend, which runs as a long-lived service. Next.js is only used to serve the application and bootstrap the client.
Some platforms impose practical limits around long-lived connections, even though SSE itself is just standard HTTP. Feato doesn’t depend on any platform-specific behavior here — it uses the browser’s native EventSource over HTTP directly to our backend.
Because of that, the client framework or hosting environment (Next.js on Vercel, CRA, Angular, etc.) doesn’t really affect the real-time channel.
Next.js / Vercel would typically be on the consumer side. Feato doesn’t rely on any server-side streaming in the client’s app.
The browser opens an SSE connection (via EventSource) directly to the Feato backend, which runs as a long-lived service. Next.js is only used to serve the application and bootstrap the client.
Some platforms impose practical limits around long-lived connections, even though SSE itself is just standard HTTP. Feato doesn’t depend on any platform-specific behavior here — it uses the browser’s native EventSource over HTTP directly to our backend.
Because of that, the client framework or hosting environment (Next.js on Vercel, CRA, Angular, etc.) doesn’t really affect the real-time channel.
I’m building Feato, a developer-first feature flag service focused on real-time delivery without polling.
The core idea is simple: applications establish a persistent connection and receive configuration changes as events, instead of repeatedly fetching flags on an interval.
Why I built this: In many projects I’ve seen feature flags implemented via polling, which adds latency and unnecessary traffic. At the same time, most mature real-time solutions are optimised for large enterprises and can be hard to justify for small teams or solo founders. I wanted something simpler: real-time delivery, predictable behaviour, and pricing that makes sense for early-stage products.
What Feato does: - Real-time flag updates via Server-Sent Events (no polling) - Environment-scoped flags (dev / staging / prod) - Lightweight SDKs (React and Angular so far) - Fail-safe behaviour: if a project is blocked or connectivity is lost, flags resolve predictably
What it does not try to be: - Not an experimentation platform - Not an analytics product - No fake demos or client-side simulations
The landing page explains the delivery model step by step and shows real console screenshots: https://feato.io/
Docs: https://feato.io/docs/getting-started
Pricing is transparent and intentionally simple.
I’d really appreciate feedback on: - The real-time delivery approach - Whether this solves a real pain point for you - What would block you from using this in production
Happy to answer any technical questions.