Sockety – Realtime Communication SaaS Platform

Sockety is a complete realtime communication platform that lets you launch your own profitable “realtime-as-a-service” business — your own self-hosted alternative to Pusher and Ably. Your customers sign up, create Apps, get instant API credentials, and connect over WebSockets for pub/sub messaging on public, private, and presence channels. With subscription plans, per-App usage limits, multi-region server management, and built-in billing, you can start charging for realtime infrastructure from day one — no coding required.

Whether you’re starting a realtime infrastructure business, providing WebSocket messaging to your own app portfolio, or offering a managed Pusher-compatible service to developer clients, Sockety provides everything you need to launch, monetize, and scale a professional realtime messaging platform — without writing a single line of code.

What You Get

Everything you need ships in one package. Upload it to your server, run the automated installer, and your platform is live. You get:

• A complete customer-facing website with a customizable landing page
• A customer dashboard where users create realtime Apps and view usage
• A powerful admin panel to manage the entire business — users, billing, servers, and plans
• Pre-built WebSocket server binaries ready to run on Linux — no compilation needed
• Documentation, installer, and automated setup scripts

How You Make Money in 3 Steps

1. Create subscription plans — Set pricing tiers (monthly, yearly, or lifetime) with different usage allowances and feature access.
2. Customers sign up and subscribe — They pay through integrated gateways (Bank Transfer and PayPal included; Stripe and others available as premium add-ons).
3. You keep 100% of revenue — Self-hosted means no per-message fees to a third party. Your margins grow as your customer base grows.

Why Choose Sockety for Your Realtime Messaging Business

• Pusher-Compatible by Design — Your customers can use standard tools they already know (pusher-js, Laravel Echo, the Pusher PHP SDK) — no retraining needed. They can migrate off Pusher or Ably with a simple credentials swap and no code rewrite.
• High-Performance WebSocket Engine — The realtime layer is a single compiled binary that handles thousands of concurrent connections on modest hardware. Pre-built binaries for Linux (AMD64/ARM64) and macOS are included — no Go toolchain required.
• Multi-Region Server Management — Deploy multiple WebSocket server nodes across regions and manage them all from the admin dashboard. Plans route their Apps to specific servers with an automatic fallback chain for resilience.
• Subscription Business Built In — Tiered plans with monthly, yearly, and lifetime billing, integrated payment gateways, PDF invoices, and a referral program. The recurring-revenue model is wired up and ready.
• Plan-Based Usage Limits — Turn technical limits into pricing levers: max Apps, connections per App, channels per App, message size, daily message volume, plus feature gates for presence channels, client events, webhooks, and the event log. Enforced both in the control plane and at the WebSocket layer.
• Self-Hosted & Fully Owned — You run the entire stack. No per-message fees to a third party, no vendor lock-in, no usage caps you don’t control. Your customers’ realtime traffic stays on your infrastructure.
• Multi-Language Ready — Professional internationalization with English and Japanese included out of the box, and an admin tool to add more locales. Expand to global developer markets.
• No-Code Management — A complete admin dashboard manages servers, plans, users, subscriptions, transactions, payment plugins, languages, the landing page, and referrals — all point-and-click.

Built-In Monetization & Revenue Features

• Subscription Plans — Define unlimited tiers with monthly, yearly, and lifetime billing cycles. Each plan carries its own WebSocket usage limits, feature flags, and a primary + fallback WebSocket server assignment.
• Plan Usage Limits as Pricing Levers — Turn technical limits into pricing tiers: max_apps, max_connections_per_app, max_channels_per_app, max_message_size_kb, max_messages_per_day, and event-log retention days. Higher tiers unlock presence channels, client events, and webhooks.
• Multiple Payment Gateways — Bank Transfer and PayPal are included out of the box. Stripe, Paystack, Razorpay, Crypto.com Pay, and YooKassa are available as premium add-on plugins. The plugin architecture makes adding gateways straightforward.
• PDF Invoices — Locale-aware, RTL-aware, and theme-aware invoice PDFs are generated automatically and available to customers from their billing page.
• Referral Program — A built-in affiliate system rewards customers with monetary account credit for bringing in new sign-ups — turning your existing user base into a growth channel.
• Transaction Ledger — Every payment, subscription change, and referral credit is recorded and reviewable from the admin dashboard, with transaction detail pages for support and reconciliation.

Pusher-Compatible Realtime Engine

The realtime layer is what your customers pay for — and it just works:

• Public, Private & Presence Channels — Open public channels, authenticated private-* channels, and presence-* channels that carry per-member user info for “who’s online” features.
• Drop-In Client Compatibility — Customers connect at wss://host:port/app/{key} (secure WebSocket in production) using standard clients with zero protocol changes.
• Pusher-Compatible REST Trigger API — Backends publish events through a Pusher-compatible REST API. Configure the standard Pusher PHP SDK with the provided endpoint, or call the API directly — no custom client library to learn.
• Signed Webhooks — The WebSocket server posts channel and presence lifecycle events (channel occupied/vacated, member joined/left) back to your platform, each cryptographically signed and verified before processing.
• Event Log & Retention — A per-App event log with plan-configurable retention in days gives customers visibility into their realtime traffic.
• Auto-Generated App Credentials — Every App is issued a unique app_id, a 40-character key, and a 64-character secret automatically — secure credentials with no manual setup.

Multi-Server Infrastructure & Scaling

• Multiple WebSocket Nodes — Register any number of server nodes and place them in different regions for low-latency global coverage.
• Smart Server Resolution — Apps resolve to a server through a fallback chain (App → Plan primary → Plan fallbacks → system default → any active), so a single node going offline doesn’t take customers down.
• Live Config Push — When an App is created, updated, or deleted, Sockety pushes the new configuration to the resolved server node instantly — usage limits change without a server restart.
• Server Key Security — Each server node authenticates with an encrypted server key. Rotating a key flags the operator to restart the matching binary, keeping the control plane and realtime layer in sync.
• Connection & Metric Sync — Scheduled commands sync live connection counts and server metrics so the dashboard always reflects real-time platform health.

Complete Business Management Dashboard

Everything you need to run your realtime infrastructure business, all from one place:

• Server Management — Register, edit, and monitor WebSocket nodes; manage regions, ports, status, and encrypted server keys.
• Plan Management — Create subscription plans with WebSocket usage limits, feature gates, billing cycles, and per-plan server assignment with fallbacks.
• User Management — View customer accounts, their Apps, subscription status, and transaction history. Admin impersonation lets you start a support session as any customer, with a persistent banner and one-click return — fully audit-logged.
• Subscriptions & Transactions — Track active subscribers, process renewals and cancellations, and review every transaction with detailed line items.
• Payment Plugins — Install, configure, and toggle payment gateway plugins from the admin panel.
• Landing Page Builder — A drag-and-drop builder customizes your marketing landing page with per-locale content — no template editing required.
• Languages — Add and manage interface locales from the dashboard.
• Referrals — Monitor referral codes, credited rewards, and affiliate performance.
• Cron Jobs — A dashboard page lists every scheduled task (webhook retries, server-metric sync, event pruning) and supports one-click manual triggering.
• System Settings — Configure general, auth, email, referral, GDPR, and broadcast settings at runtime — including full white-label rebranding of the product name and identity.
• Audit Log — A complete audit trail of admin actions for accountability and support.

Scalable Architecture & Growth Features

• High-Performance Stack — A Laravel 13 + React 19 control plane paired with a compiled Go realtime engine handles large customer bases and high connection counts efficiently.
• White-Label Ready — Product name, branding, and identity are runtime settings — rebrand the entire platform as your own without touching code.
• GDPR Compliance Tools — Queued data export, an account-deletion grace period, consent tracking, and configurable retention windows for events, audit logs, and exports.
• Automated Operations — Scheduled jobs handle webhook retries, server-metric sync, and event-log pruning automatically via the Laravel scheduler.
• Error Monitoring — Buffered Sentry error reporting with an admin toggle keeps you ahead of production issues.
• Multi-Currency & Multi-Language — Localized interface, currency-aware billing, and RTL-aware invoices ready for worldwide deployment.
• Future-Proof Technology — Built on Laravel 13, React 19, Inertia 3, and Tailwind CSS 4 with clean architecture, comprehensive automated tests, and professional documentation.

Why Sockety is a Smart Investment for Online Entrepreneurs

• Recurring Revenue from Day One — Subscription plans, usage-based tiers, payment gateways, invoices, and a referral engine are built in and ready to charge customers immediately.
• A Proven Market — Realtime messaging is infrastructure every modern app needs. Sockety lets you serve that demand as a Pusher-compatible alternative your customers can adopt without rewriting code.
• Own Your Margins — Self-hosted means no per-message third-party fees. As your customer base grows, your costs stay flat and your margins expand.
• Scale Across Regions — Multi-server architecture with fallback routing lets you grow geographically and sell low-latency coverage as a premium feature.
• No-Code Operation — Run the whole business from the admin dashboard — servers, plans, billing, support, and branding — without developer involvement.
• Future-Proof Technology — Modern Laravel + React + Go stack with a plugin system for payment gateways and clean, well-tested, well-documented code.

Complete Feature List

Realtime Messaging Engine

• Pusher-protocol-compatible WebSocket server
• Public, private (private-*), and presence (presence-*) channels
• HMAC channel authentication and presence member info
• Drop-in compatibility with pusher-js and Laravel Echo clients
• Pusher-compatible REST trigger API (works with pusher/pusher-php-server)
• HMAC-SHA256 signed webhooks for channel/presence lifecycle events
• Per-App event log with plan-configurable retention
• Pre-built binaries for Linux AMD64, Linux ARM64, and macOS — no Go toolchain needed

Apps & Developer Experience

• Per-App auto-generated credentials (app_id, 40-hex key, 64-hex secret)
• Plan-enforced usage limits (apps, connections, channels, message size, daily messages)
• Feature gates for presence channels, client events, webhooks, and event log
• Live App config push to the resolved WebSocket node on create/update/delete
• Bundled documentation site for end-user developers

Infrastructure & Multi-Server

• Multiple Go WebSocket server nodes across regions
• Per-plan server assignment with an automatic fallback chain
• Encrypted server keys with rotation support
• Scheduled connection-count and server-metric synchronization
• Cron job dashboard with one-click manual triggering

Billing & Monetization

• Tiered subscription plans with monthly, yearly, and lifetime billing
• Payment gateway plugins — Bank Transfer + PayPal bundled; Stripe, Paystack, Razorpay, Crypto.com Pay, YooKassa as premium add-ons
• Locale-, RTL-, and theme-aware PDF invoices
• Referral program with monetary account-credit rewards
• Transaction ledger with detailed transaction pages

Administration & Compliance

• Complete no-code admin dashboard with real-time overview
• Admin impersonation with persistent banner, one-click return, and audit logging
• Drag-and-drop landing page builder with per-locale content
• Runtime system settings with full white-label rebranding
• Multi-language interface (English + Japanese included, more addable)
• GDPR tools — data export, account-deletion grace period, consent tracking, retention controls
• Full audit log of admin actions

System Requirements

• PHP: 8.4 or higher
• Database: MySQL 8.0+ or MariaDB 10.4+ (SQLite supported for evaluation)
• Web Server: Nginx or Apache
• SSL Certificate: Required for production WebSocket connections in browsers
• WebSocket Server: A VPS/host that can run the bundled Go WebSocket binary (Linux x86_64 or ARM64)

Required PHP Extensions

• BCMath, Ctype, cURL, DOM
• Fileinfo, JSON, Mbstring
• OpenSSL, PDO, Tokenizer, XML
• GD or Imagick (for image processing)