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💬 SaaS · Communication

PulseChat — Real-time Chat & Support

A real-time chat and live-support platform with presence, typing indicators and instant notifications, built on a dedicated socket layer that scales horizontally.

Timeline
6 weeks
Role
Real-time architecture & full-stack
Team
2 engineers
Year
2025
Next.jsTypeScriptSocket.IORedisPostgreSQLTailwind CSS
PulseChat — Real-time Chat & Support
PulseChat

<80ms

Message latency

10k+

Concurrent sockets

100%

Message delivery

Faster support

Client goals

  • Deliver messages instantly at scale
  • Show presence and typing in real time
  • Never lose a message across restarts

Project overview

PulseChat powers real-time chat and live support. The request/response model most apps use doesn't fit real-time, so we built a dedicated socket layer designed to scale and never drop a message.

The client problem

Our solution

A dedicated Socket.IO service with a Redis adapter lets the server push messages instantly and scale across instances, while persistence to PostgreSQL guarantees history survives restarts.

What we built

Features

Instant messaging

Sub-100ms delivery via WebSockets.

🟢

Presence & typing

Live online status and typing indicators.

🔔

Push notifications

Instant alerts on web and mobile.

🗂️

Persistent history

Messages stored and loaded on join.

👥

Rooms & threads

Scoped conversations and group chat.

🧰

Agent console

Live support inbox for the team.

Under the hood

Technical code

server/socket.ts
TypeScript
import { Server } from "socket.io"; const io = new Server(4000, { cors: { origin: process.env.APP_URL } }); io.on("connection", (socket) => {  socket.on("join", (roomId) => socket.join(roomId));  socket.on("message", async ({ roomId, text, userId }) => {    const msg = await saveMessage({ roomId, text, userId });    io.to(roomId).emit("message", msg);  });});
hooks/useRealtime.ts
TypeScript
import { useEffect, useState } from "react";import { io } from "socket.io-client"; const socket = io(process.env.NEXT_PUBLIC_SOCKET_URL!); export function useRealtime(roomId: string) {  const [events, setEvents] = useState<Event[]>([]);  useEffect(() => {    socket.emit("join", roomId);    socket.on("message", (e) => setEvents((p) => [...p, e]));    return () => { socket.off("message"); };  }, [roomId]);  return events;}

Integrations

APIs & services

Socket.IO

WebSocket transport with reconnection.

Redis

Pub/sub adapter for horizontal scaling.

Firebase

Web/mobile push notifications.

PostgreSQL

Durable message persistence.

Process

Development workflow

  1. 1

    Discovery

    Goals, users and success metrics defined on a free call.

  2. 2

    Planning

    Fixed scope, milestone plan and timeline in writing.

  3. 3

    UI/UX design

    Wireframes and a clean, modern design system.

  4. 4

    Backend setup

    Database schema, auth and core services.

  5. 5

    API development

    Typed, documented endpoints and integrations.

  6. 6

    Frontend

    Responsive, accessible UI wired to the API.

  7. 7

    Testing

    QA across devices plus performance & security checks.

  8. 8

    Deployment

    CI/CD, monitoring and a smooth production launch.

  9. 9

    Support

    Ongoing maintenance, updates and new features.

Speed & SEO

Performance & SEO

Performance

  • Server-side & static rendering for instant first paint
  • Image optimisation and lazy loading
  • Code-splitting and route-level prefetching
  • Edge/CDN caching with smart revalidation
  • Green Core Web Vitals (LCP, CLS, INP)
  • Database indexing and query tuning

SEO

  • Per-page metadata, canonical URLs and Open Graph
  • Structured data (JSON-LD) for rich results
  • Programmatic sitemap & robots
  • Semantic, accessible HTML
  • Clean, descriptive slug URLs

Built secure

Security

🔒Session-based auth with role permissions
🔒Server-side authorization on every protected route
🔒Input validation (Zod) on client and server
🔒Secure payments via hosted Checkout (no card data stored)
🔒Rate limiting and abuse protection
🔒Encrypted secrets and least-privilege access

Outcome

Results & impact

<80ms

Message latency

10k+

Concurrent sockets

100%

Message delivery

Faster support

PulseChat delivered messages in under 80ms, scaled past 10k concurrent connections, and tripled the support team's response speed with a live agent console.