Real-Time Map
A live location tracking app that shows multiple users' positions on an interactive map in real-time using WebSockets.
About This Project
Real-Time Map is a Node.js web application that tracks and displays multiple users' live locations on an interactive map simultaneously. When a user opens the app, their browser shares geolocation data which is emitted to the server via Socket.io. The server broadcasts all connected users' coordinates to every client in real-time, updating their pins on the map instantly. Built with Express.js and EJS for server-side rendering, with Socket.io handling the bi-directional WebSocket communication.
Key Features
- Live multi-user location tracking — all connected users appear as pins on the map
- Real-time coordinate broadcasting via Socket.io WebSockets
- Browser Geolocation API integration for automatic location detection
- Instant map updates when users join, move, or disconnect
- Server-side rendered views with EJS templating
- Deployed and publicly accessible on Render
Challenges & Solutions
Managing multiple concurrent Socket.io connections and broadcasting efficiently
Maintained an in-memory Map keyed by socket ID on the server to store each user's latest coordinates; on every location update the server broadcast the entire active users map to all clients, avoiding individual targeted emits
Handling user disconnect events to cleanly remove their pin from other clients' maps
Listened to Socket.io's built-in 'disconnect' event to immediately delete the departing user's entry from the server map and emit a 'user-left' event carrying their socket ID, so every connected client could remove that pin from their Leaflet map instance