What is RSocket?
RSocket implements the Reactive Streams specification over the network boundary. It is an application-level communication protocol with framing, session resumption, and backpressure built-in that works over the network.
RSocket is transport agnostic. RSocket can be run over Websockets, TCP, HTTP/2, and Aeron.
How does RSocket differ from Websockets?
Websockets do not provide application-level backpressure, only TCP-based byte-level backpressure. Websockets also only provide framing they do not provide application semantics. It is up to the developer to build out an application protocol for interacting with the websocket.
RSocket provides framing, application semantics, application-level backpressure, and it is not tied to a specific transport.
For more information on the motivations behind the creation of RSocket checkout the motivations doc on the RSocket site.