Make a Simple Real-time chat application using Laravel Reverb
Building a Real-Time Chat Application with Laravel Reverb
In this blog post, we are going to see how we can build a real-time chat application using Laravel Reverb. Laravel Reverb is serverless WebSocket made for Laravel developers to easily implement real-time features with little or no setup.
Why Laravel Reverb?
Before Laravel Reverb, most implementations of real-time features in Laravel incorporated services like Pusher or the setup of a full WebSocket server with Laravel Echo and Redis. These approaches, needless to say, are quite powerful, but sometimes difficult to use, also requiring extra infrastructure to be maintained.
Laravel Reverb simplifies this process by removing the necessity of an external WebSocket server or even a third-party service. Being attuned to work with Laravel, it provides real-time communication without conventional overhead.
Comparison to Other Solutions
Pusher: It is also a managed service for real-time notifications. Although highly available, it will come with associated ongoing costs and managing API keys along with permissions.
Laravel Echo + Redis: Functionality in real time is given by creating a Redis server and connecting to it with Laravel Echo. Setting this up is robust, but it requires more configuration and infrastructure management.
Laravel Reverb: A serverless solution that minimizes setup complexity and is cost-effective, not to mention the added benefits of native integration with Laravel.
Setting Up Laravel Reverb
To get started, we first set up a latest Laravel project and installed Laravel Reverb using the following command:
php artisan reverb:install
This command sets up Reverb as a broadcast driver, along with the necessary environment variables and files. Later on, after installation, we ran the WebSocket server by using:
php artisan reverb:startThis command starts the WebSocket server, enabling real-time communication.
Chat Interface:
Using Laravel Blade templates and Livewire, we created a chat interface where one user can send messages to another in real-time.
Source Code
The full source code for this project, together with detailed implementation, is available on GitHub. It is our hope that through the post, one gets to understand how easy it is to build real-time applications using Laravel Reverb.
Whether you're building a chat app or any other real-time feature, it can help you get the job done perfectly.