A method, system and computer program product for transferring data between two applications over a local network connection. The invention establishes a socket connection between the applications and transfers data through the socket connection using a pseudo socket layer interface when the two endpoints of the socket connection are on the same host. Socket application program interface comprises socket buffers for sending and receiving data. A connecting application identifies and establishes a connection with a listening socket, and places data directly in the socket receive buffer of the receiving socket. If the other end of the socket connection is on a remote host, then data is transferred using underlying network facilities.