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

<80ms
Message latency
10k+
Concurrent sockets
100%
Message delivery
3×
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
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); });});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
Discovery
Goals, users and success metrics defined on a free call.
- 2
Planning
Fixed scope, milestone plan and timeline in writing.
- 3
UI/UX design
Wireframes and a clean, modern design system.
- 4
Backend setup
Database schema, auth and core services.
- 5
API development
Typed, documented endpoints and integrations.
- 6
Frontend
Responsive, accessible UI wired to the API.
- 7
Testing
QA across devices plus performance & security checks.
- 8
Deployment
CI/CD, monitoring and a smooth production launch.
- 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
Outcome
Results & impact
<80ms
Message latency
10k+
Concurrent sockets
100%
Message delivery
3×
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.
Add real-time features
Live chat, presence and instant notifications — built to scale on a clean socket architecture.


