Should I use GCM for real time communication between devices?

[Harshvardhan Gupta]

I want to make an Instant Messaging app between Android Only Devices. To maximize efficiency and reliability, I decided to use GCM (both, downstream and upstream, and NOT send-to-sync). 

But I read on some forums that it does not guarantee message delivery , and its not instant. 
Is that the case ?
then what should I use ? 

Here is my thread in stackoverflow as well: 
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/30151587/should-i-use-gcm-for-real-time-communication-between-devices

[Diego Giorgini]

Hi Harshvardhan,

Google Cloud Messaging is very reliable and a very high percentage of the messages are delivered in less than a second.
It is also the correct tool to use if you need to push messages to Android and Chrome devices.
(Polling or keeping your own connection in background would quickly drain the battery)

However, we do not offer SLA for GCM.

For this reason it is a good practice to store important data in your own backend, so that you can retransmit if needed.

Cheers,
- Diego

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