Full Documentation  |   Discord

Zero-Config WebSockets.

No accounts, no API keys, nothing to deploy. Just connect and start sending.

~466 bytes • free forever

After building realtime apps for years, I wanted something absolutely frictionless for prototyping. Spinning up socket servers or authenticating to services like Pusher/Ably involves overhead every time... so I built a service for myself (and everyone else). Then I designed this super-tiny WebSocket client that made even that side really easy to work with.

Welcome to itty-sockets!

Features

• Zero Configuration - No accounts, no API keys, no server. Pick a channel name and you're live.
• Zero Cost - No tiers. No credit card. Built for the community.
• Private by Default - No logging, no tracking, no storage. Messages are relayed and forgotten.
• Send Anything - Strings, objects, arrays — anything JSON-serializable.
• Access Control - Reserve a namespace to control who can join or send on your channels.
• Use Anywhere - No vendor lock. This client works with any WebSocket server. Want to host your own? No problem.
• Tiny Client - Only 466 bytes gzipped.

Quick Start

import { connect } from 'itty-sockets' // ~466 bytes

connect('my-channel')
  .on('message', ({ message }) => console.log(message))
  .send('hello world')   // strings
  .send([1, 2, 3])       // arrays
  .send({ foo: 'bar' })  // objects

Chat Example

import { connect } from 'itty-sockets'

// two users, same channel
const alice = connect('chat-room', { as: 'Alice' })
const bob   = connect('chat-room', { as: 'Bob' })

alice.on('message', ({ message, alias }) =>
  console.log(`${alias}: ${message}`)
)

bob.send('hey Alice!')
// → "Bob: hey Alice!"

API at a Glance

| Method | Description | |---|---| | connect(channel, options?) | Connect to a channel (or raw wss:// URL) | | .on(type, listener) | Listen for events ('message', 'join', 'leave', 'open', 'close', 'error', custom types, or '*') | | .on(filterFn, listener) | Listen with a custom filter function | | .send(message, uid?) | Send a message (optionally to a specific user) | | .push(message, uid?) | Send a message and disconnect | | .open() | (Re)connect — safe to call anytime, listeners are preserved | | .close() | Disconnect | | .remove(type, listener) | Remove a listener |

See the full documentation.