Do I need a server to use HTML5's WebSockets?

When using WebSockets, will I need to write server code? In other words, will the JavaScript in my client application need to connect to a specialized server, or will my existing Apache server work to support this?

The server has to support web sockets. After a first handshake in HTTP, the server and the client open a socket connection. The server must be able to understand and accept this handshake.

In my last project we run quite successfully web socket connections using the last Jetty version.

27/02/2014: Now I'm also implementing websockets under .net with XSockets.net and works like a charm, you don't even need a web server (self hosting). The WebSocket implementation of ASP.NET works also quite good.

Yes,you need to write server code.

I recommend another web socket server based on php: ratchet. And this link is benchmarking webSocket servers between ratchet and sockJS.

Complete list of client & server side codes and browsers support please check this link

Of course you need a WebSocket server. But there are many free websocket server in different language, like jWebSocket in Java and SuperWebSocket in .NET, you can use them directly.