Stop Asking for Real-Time Data (You Probably Don’t Need It) Or: Why “real time” is one of the most expensive words in software architecture.

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The uncomfortable truth

After decades of building enterprise systems, here’s an observation that makes some people uncomfortable:

Most people who ask for “real-time” data updates don’t actually need real time.

What they want is confidence, responsiveness, and trust — not millisecond precision.

And yet, the moment the phrase real time enters a requirements meeting, costs go up, architectures get complicated, and teams quietly inherit a system they now have to babysit forever.

What people say vs. what they actually mean

When someone says:

“We need this data in real time.”

They usually mean:

  • “I don’t want stale data.”

  • “I don’t want to refresh the page.”

  • “I want to react quickly.”

  • “I want to trust what I’m seeing.”

None of those requires true real-time infrastructure.

They require fast-enough data and good UX.


Once you cross into true real time, you introduce:

  • Persistent connections

  • Stateful servers

  • Fan-out scaling challenges

  • Reconnection logic

  • Ordering and duplication issues

  • Monitoring complexity

  • Security exposure from long-lived connections

You don’t pay a little more.

You pay a different class of price.

Real-world examples (where “real time” is overkill)

1. Dashboards

Most dashboards are:

  • Read-only

  • Observational

  • Used for situational awareness

A refresh every 10–30 seconds is indistinguishable from real time for a human.

Yet teams build:

  • Live push pipelines

  • Persistent socket connections

  • Complex client state management

For what? A chart moving slightly faster?

2. Approval workflows

Approvals are human-paced by nature.

Whether an approval shows up:

  • immediately

  • in 10 seconds

  • or in 30 seconds

…has zero business impact in most organizations.

And yet “real time” gets requested because:

“What if someone is waiting on it?”

They’re not. They’re in a meeting.

3. Reporting & operational views

Reports are often:

  • aggregated

  • derived

  • summarized

Refreshing them constantly:

  • increases database load

  • invalidates caching strategies

  • adds no additional decision value

A clear label:

“Last updated 15 seconds ago”

creates trust without architectural pain.

The psychological trick: perceived freshness

Here’s the secret seasoned architects learn:

Humans care about perceived freshness, not actual freshness.

A system that:

  • updates automatically

  • shows a timestamp

  • animates subtle refresh cues

feels real time — even when it isn’t.

This is where good UX beats clever infrastructure.

When real-time actually is justified

To be clear: real time does matter sometimes.

Examples:

  • Medical monitoring

  • Industrial control systems

  • Financial trading

  • Multiplayer gaming

  • Collaborative editing (Google Docs-style)

  • Live auctions or bidding systems

Notice the pattern:

  • Time sensitivity changes the outcome

  • Delays cause harm or loss

If neither is true — pause.

A decision checklist: Do you really need real-time?

Before approving a real-time design, ask:

  • ⬜ Does a 5–30 second delay change a business decision?

  • ⬜ Is there a safety, financial, or legal impact?

  • ⬜ Are users actively reacting second-by-second?

  • ⬜ Can the user tolerate “fresh enough” data?

  • ⬜ Would a timestamp solve the trust problem?

  • ⬜ Can we start non-real-time and evolve later?

If you answer “no” to most of these…

You don’t need real time.

The architectural takeaway

“Real time” is not a feature. It’s a liability.

Treat it like one.

Start with:

  • simple APIs

  • smart polling

  • clear UX cues

  • event-driven backends without push

Graduate to real-time only when reality proves you need it.

Your future self — and your cloud bill — will thank you.

Closing thought

The best architectures aren’t the most impressive.

They’re the ones that:

  • solve the real problem

  • respect human time

  • and avoid unnecessary heroics

And most of the time…

Real-time is unnecessary heroics.

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