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0042. No WebSocket server: Soketi and Pusher removed, Reverb only when a feature needs push

Generated from docs/decisions/0042-no-websocket-server.md

  • Status: Proposed
  • Date: 2026-10-09
  • Plan: docs/plans/leftovers-0-2.md (L0-04)

Context and problem statement

Section titled “Context and problem statement”

Soketi runs in compose and Caddy routes ws.localhost to it. Nothing uses it:

  • The broadcast driver is log everywhere.
  • No class implements ShouldBroadcast.
  • No frontend loads Echo or pusher-js.
  • The Course Builder streams over SSE (ADR 0011, ADR 0029).

The roadmap planned to “drop Soketi until realtime is needed; Laravel Reverb after 0.2”.

Considered options

Section titled “Considered options”
  1. Remove Soketi and pusher/pusher-php-server, and add nothing.
  2. Replace Soketi with Laravel Reverb now.
  3. Keep Soketi.

Decision

Section titled “Decision”

Option 1:

  • The broadcast connection defaults to null.
  • The broadcast provider and the inert channel files are removed.
  • ws.localhost and metrics.localhost are no longer routed.

A future feature that needs server push should first consider SSE through the existing event-log pattern; Reverb is adopted only when bidirectional low-latency messaging is required, with its own ADR.

Consequences

Section titled “Consequences”
  • Good: one container and one Composer dependency fewer, and no AGPL component (Soketi) in the stack.
  • Bad: if WebSockets are needed later, the broadcasting setup has to be added back.
  • Default pending #43.