Laravel Reverb Released

Laravel Reverb is officially released, providing native WebSocket support without external services. Self-hosted real-time capabilities with horizontal scaling. At ZIRA Software, we've migrated projects from Pusher to Reverb with significant cost savings.

Installation

composer require laravel/reverb

php artisan reverb:install

This publishes configuration and sets up the necessary files.

Configuration

// config/reverb.php
return [
    'default' => env('REVERB_SERVER', 'reverb'),

    'servers' => [
        'reverb' => [
            'host' => env('REVERB_HOST', '0.0.0.0'),
            'port' => env('REVERB_PORT', 8080),
            'hostname' => env('REVERB_HOSTNAME', 'localhost'),
            'options' => [
                'tls' => [],
            ],
            'scaling' => [
                'enabled' => env('REVERB_SCALING_ENABLED', false),
                'channel' => env('REVERB_SCALING_CHANNEL', 'reverb'),
            ],
            'pulse_ingest_interval' => env('REVERB_PULSE_INGEST_INTERVAL', 15),
        ],
    ],

    'apps' => [
        'provider' => 'config',
        'apps' => [
            [
                'key' => env('REVERB_APP_KEY', 'my-app-key'),
                'secret' => env('REVERB_APP_SECRET', 'my-app-secret'),
                'app_id' => env('REVERB_APP_ID', 'my-app-id'),
                'options' => [
                    'host' => env('REVERB_HOST', '0.0.0.0'),
                    'port' => env('REVERB_PORT', 443),
                    'scheme' => env('REVERB_SCHEME', 'https'),
                    'useTLS' => env('REVERB_SCHEME', 'https') === 'https',
                ],
                'allowed_origins' => ['*'],
                'ping_interval' => 60,
                'max_message_size' => 10_000,
            ],
        ],
    ],
];

# .env
BROADCAST_CONNECTION=reverb

REVERB_APP_ID=my-app-id
REVERB_APP_KEY=my-app-key
REVERB_APP_SECRET=my-app-secret
REVERB_HOST=localhost
REVERB_PORT=8080
REVERB_SCHEME=http

VITE_REVERB_APP_KEY="${REVERB_APP_KEY}"
VITE_REVERB_HOST="${REVERB_HOST}"
VITE_REVERB_PORT="${REVERB_PORT}"
VITE_REVERB_SCHEME="${REVERB_SCHEME}"

Starting the Server

# Development
php artisan reverb:start

# With verbose output
php artisan reverb:start --debug

# Production (with Supervisor)
php artisan reverb:start --host=0.0.0.0 --port=8080

# /etc/supervisor/conf.d/reverb.conf
[program:reverb]
command=php /var/www/app/artisan reverb:start --host=0.0.0.0 --port=8080
autostart=true
autorestart=true
user=www-data
redirect_stderr=true
stdout_logfile=/var/www/app/storage/logs/reverb.log
stopwaitsecs=3600

Broadcasting Events

// app/Events/MessageSent.php
class MessageSent implements ShouldBroadcast
{
    use Dispatchable, InteractsWithSockets, SerializesModels;

    public function __construct(
        public Message $message,
    ) {}

    public function broadcastOn(): array
    {
        return [
            new PrivateChannel('conversation.' . $this->message->conversation_id),
        ];
    }

    public function broadcastAs(): string
    {
        return 'message.sent';
    }

    public function broadcastWith(): array
    {
        return [
            'id' => $this->message->id,
            'content' => $this->message->content,
            'user' => [
                'id' => $this->message->user_id,
                'name' => $this->message->user->name,
            ],
            'sent_at' => $this->message->created_at->toISOString(),
        ];
    }
}

// Dispatch event
broadcast(new MessageSent($message))->toOthers();

Laravel Echo Setup

// resources/js/bootstrap.js
import Echo from 'laravel-echo';
import Pusher from 'pusher-js';

window.Pusher = Pusher;

window.Echo = new Echo({
    broadcaster: 'reverb',
    key: import.meta.env.VITE_REVERB_APP_KEY,
    wsHost: import.meta.env.VITE_REVERB_HOST,
    wsPort: import.meta.env.VITE_REVERB_PORT ?? 80,
    wssPort: import.meta.env.VITE_REVERB_PORT ?? 443,
    forceTLS: (import.meta.env.VITE_REVERB_SCHEME ?? 'https') === 'https',
    enabledTransports: ['ws', 'wss'],
});

Channel Authorization

// routes/channels.php
use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Broadcast;

Broadcast::channel('conversation.{conversationId}', function ($user, $conversationId) {
    return $user->conversations()->where('id', $conversationId)->exists();
});

Broadcast::channel('user.{userId}', function ($user, $userId) {
    return (int) $user->id === (int) $userId;
});

Presence Channels

// routes/channels.php
Broadcast::channel('chat.{roomId}', function ($user, $roomId) {
    if ($user->canJoinRoom($roomId)) {
        return [
            'id' => $user->id,
            'name' => $user->name,
            'avatar' => $user->avatar_url,
        ];
    }
});

// Frontend
Echo.join(`chat.${roomId}`)
    .here((users) => {
        this.onlineUsers = users;
    })
    .joining((user) => {
        this.onlineUsers.push(user);
    })
    .leaving((user) => {
        this.onlineUsers = this.onlineUsers.filter(u => u.id !== user.id);
    })
    .listen('MessageSent', (e) => {
        this.messages.push(e.message);
    });

Horizontal Scaling with Redis

// config/reverb.php
'scaling' => [
    'enabled' => true,
    'channel' => 'reverb',
],

// config/database.php - Redis connection
'redis' => [
    'reverb' => [
        'url' => env('REDIS_URL'),
        'host' => env('REDIS_HOST', '127.0.0.1'),
        'port' => env('REDIS_PORT', '6379'),
        'database' => env('REDIS_REVERB_DB', '0'),
    ],
],

Production Deployment

# nginx.conf
upstream reverb {
    server 127.0.0.1:8080;
}

server {
    listen 443 ssl;
    server_name ws.example.com;

    ssl_certificate /path/to/cert.pem;
    ssl_certificate_key /path/to/key.pem;

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://reverb;
        proxy_http_version 1.1;
        proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
        proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
        proxy_read_timeout 60s;
        proxy_send_timeout 60s;
    }
}

Migration from Pusher

// Before (Pusher)
'pusher' => [
    'driver' => 'pusher',
    'key' => env('PUSHER_APP_KEY'),
    // ...
],

// After (Reverb)
'reverb' => [
    'driver' => 'reverb',
    'key' => env('REVERB_APP_KEY'),
    // ...
],

// Echo configuration update
// Change broadcaster from 'pusher' to 'reverb'
broadcaster: 'reverb',

Conclusion

Laravel Reverb provides native WebSocket support with easy setup and horizontal scaling. Self-hosted real-time eliminates third-party costs while maintaining full Laravel integration.

Need WebSocket implementation? Contact ZIRA Software for real-time features.