Victor Gazotti

Real-time features are no longer a “nice to have.” Dashboards, notifications, live metrics, and collaborative tools are now expected behaviors in modern applications.

As Laravel developers, we’re in a great position: the ecosystem offers first-class support for WebSockets through Laravel Echo and Reverb. Still, many tutorials stop at theory or overused chat examples.

In this Laravel WebSockets tutorial, I want to share a practical, production-adjacent example: a real-time dashboard that updates totals instantly, without polling, using Echo and Reverb.

This is a hands-on guide aimed at developers who want to understand how WebSockets actually work in Laravel, not just copy-paste code.

This article walks developers through running Ressonance self hosted using Docker, from local development to production-ready setups. It explains the architecture, exposed ports, and data persistence while highlighting why Ressonance offers a unique, open, and unopinionated approach to real-time infrastructure. Whether you want full control or a smooth path to the cloud, the post shows how to get started quickly and confidently — with a free tier available to explore real-time at your own pace.

Ressonance is now open source, and that changes everything. In this post, we share why we chose transparency over black boxes, how building in public shapes every technical decision we make, and what this means for developers building real-time applications with Laravel and WebSockets. From the hidden complexity of scaling real-time infrastructure to the concrete benefits of open source trust and collaboration, this article explains the philosophy behind Ressonance and invites you to experience it yourself through our free tier.

Welcome to the Ressonance blog — a place built for developers who care about clarity, reliability, and simplicity when working with real-time applications

Learn the difference between channels and events in WebSockets, why it matters for real-time apps, and how Ressonance helps you build faster with a generous free tier.

This post offers a clear, actionable explanation of these two essential real-time concepts. Perfect for developers building chat apps, dashboards, or collaborative tools, it breaks down how channels group communication streams and how events describe meaningful actions within them.

You’ll learn common mistakes to avoid, best practices to follow, and how to implement real-time features with ease. We also introduce Ressonance, a modern WebSocket platform with a generous free tier, secure channels, real-time analytics, and simple SDKs.

Whether you're just starting with real-time architecture or improving an existing system, this guide will help you build smarter, faster, and more scalable applications.

Real-time features are no longer optional. But for Laravel devs, WebSockets are still harder than they should be. This post breaks down why WebSockets matter more than ever, where most implementations fail, and how Ressonance makes it effortless to use Laravel Notifications in real-time — with no Redis, no Echo, and no config headaches.