Conversational AI chatbot for operational workflows
- 12 weeks
- from concept to launch
Real-Time App Development | WebSocket & SSE
Real-Time App Development
RaftLabs builds real-time applications using WebSocket, Server-Sent Events, and event-driven architecture. We deliver production-grade real-time features for web and mobile, live dashboards, collaborative editing, push notifications, and multiplayer functionality, on a fixed cost.
Every engagement starts with a technical diagnosis: we identify the right protocol for your use case, size the infrastructure, and define what latency and reliability targets are actually achievable. Then we build, test under load, and hand over a system your team can operate.
WebSocket, SSE, and event-driven architecture, we choose the right tool for your latency target
Load-tested for thousands of concurrent connections before delivery
Fixed-cost engagements with defined scope and delivery milestones
Full handover, code, infrastructure config, and runbook included
Recent outcomes
Voice AI · Research
6× deeper insights
Text-based interviews converted to automated phone calls
AI Automation · Ops
20k+ txns day one
Manual invoice OCR across 40+ gas stations
Loyalty · Retail
1,062 users in 4 weeks
SuperValu & Centra loyalty platform with receipt validation
SaaS · Logistics
2,000+ shipments yr 1
Multi-carrier shipping hub for Indonesian eCommerce
4.9
on ClutchThe problem
Sound familiar?
Your users are refreshing the page to see updated data because your app has no live updates?
You added polling as a quick fix and now your server is drowning in unnecessary requests?
Short answer
RaftLabs builds real-time apps using WebSocket, SSE, and event-driven architecture for clients across the US, UK, Europe, Canada, GCC, South Africa, and Southeast Asia. 100+ products shipped. A WebSocket feature runs $15,000-$60,000. A full real-time platform runs $40,000-$150,000. Fixed price, load-tested before handover.
Key takeaways
- RaftLabs has shipped 100+ software products including real-time applications for clients in the US, UK, Europe, Canada, GCC, South Africa, and Southeast Asia.
- Adding a WebSocket feature to an existing application runs $15,000 to $60,000 on a fixed price.
- Building a full real-time platform with event-driven backend and live dashboards runs $40,000 to $150,000.
- A single real-time feature ships in 4 to 6 weeks; a full platform takes 10 to 14 weeks.
- Every system is load-tested for thousands of concurrent connections before handover.
- HIPAA-compliant real-time builds are supported for healthcare and clinical monitoring use cases.
Trusted by
Proof
- 100+
- software products shipped since 2015
- RaftLabs delivery record
- 4.9/5
- average client rating across delivered projects
- Clutch, verified reviews
- Fixed price
- scope and cost agreed in writing before any development starts
- Every RaftLabs engagement
Real-time features your users notice
Most web applications are built around a request-response model: the user asks, the server answers, the page updates. That model breaks down the moment your users need to act on data that changes faster than they are willing to refresh. Operations teams watching live orders, traders monitoring positions, field crews tracking assets, and users collaborating on shared documents all need updates that arrive the moment the underlying data changes.
According to Grand View Research's 2024 market analysis, the global web real-time communication market was valued at $8.71 billion and is projected to grow at a CAGR of 45.7% through 2030. That growth rate reflects how many product teams are discovering that polling and page refreshes are no longer acceptable for users who expect live data.
RaftLabs builds the WebSocket servers, event-driven backends, and real-time front-end integrations that make that possible. We have shipped live dashboards, collaborative editors, real-time notification systems, and multiplayer features for production applications, and we load-test every system before handover to confirm it holds up under the connection counts your business actually needs.
Capabilities
What we build
- 01WebSocket application development
Persistent bidirectional connections for chat, multiplayer, collaborative tools, and live data feeds, where polling would need hundreds of requests per minute to match the latency. Authentication happens during the connection handshake, messages fan out across server nodes, and heartbeats with exponential-backoff reconnection handle flaky networks. Load-tested to your concurrent connection target before delivery.
- Built with
- Socket.io · ws · Node.js · Go · Redis Pub/Sub · k6
- 02Live collaboration software
Multi-user editing where several people modify the same document, canvas, or spreadsheet simultaneously without overwriting each other's changes. Conflict resolution guarantees convergence, so any two nodes applying the same operations reach the same state. Presence indicators show each user's cursor and selection in real time, and undo history is per-user so your ctrl-Z never reverts a teammate's work.
- Built with
- CRDT · Yjs · WebSocket · WebRTC
- 03Real-time dashboards and monitoring
Operational dashboards that update the moment underlying data changes: fleet maps, production monitoring, financial positions, IoT sensor feeds. Backend pipelines capture changes via event streams, SSE delivers read-only monitoring at lower cost while WebSocket handles interactive dashboards, and frontends apply incremental updates so charts change without flicker. Designed for thousands of concurrent viewers with update batching that prevents DOM thrashing.
- Built with
- CDC · SSE · React · Recharts · Mapbox GL JS
- 04Event-driven architecture
Message broker design for systems where services communicate reliably without tight coupling: an order placed triggers fulfilment, inventory, and notifications independently. Dead letter queues preserve failed messages for investigation, and schema management catches breaking changes at publish time rather than in the consumer. Event sourcing and CQRS are available where full state history matters.
- Built with
- Kafka · RabbitMQ · Event sourcing · CQRS
- 05Real-time notifications and alerting
Push notification systems that reach users within seconds of a threshold crossing or status change, with delivery confirmation and retry so alerts never silently fail. In-app alerts carry read receipts and queue for offline users, and webhook fan-out delivers the same event to multiple channels with independent retry. Deduplication suppresses repeats, unacknowledged alerts escalate on a defined chain, and each user controls their own channel preferences.
- Built with
- WebSocket · Webhooks · Slack, PagerDuty, Teams
- 06Real-time mobile features
WebSocket and SSE integrations for React Native and native iOS/Android apps, with the mobile-specific engineering that keeps real-time features reliable on cellular networks and battery-constrained devices. Reconnection logic handles background suspension and fetches missed events on resume, offline messages queue locally and flush in order, and push notifications wake the app when needed.
- Built with
- WebSocket · SSE · React Native · Firebase Cloud Messaging
How we work
From scope to shipped
Every project follows the same four phases. Scope is locked and price is fixed before development starts.
- Week 101
Discovery and scope
We map the problem, the user, and the latency requirements. You leave week 1 with a written scope document, a protocol recommendation (WebSocket, SSE, or event-driven), and a fixed-price quote. No development starts without your sign-off.
- Weeks 2-302
Architecture and design
Infrastructure sizing, connection topology, and pub/sub layer design happen before any code is written. Decisions made here cost ten times less than the same decisions made in week 8. The spec is locked before the build starts.
- Weeks 4-1203
Build, integrate, and load test
Working real-time features at a staging URL by the end of sprint one. Bi-weekly demos. Load testing runs in parallel with every sprint so connection targets are verified continuously, not as a phase at the end.
- Weeks 12+04
Launch and post-launch support
Production deployment with connection monitoring and alerting activated on launch day. 8 weeks of post-launch support included in every project.
Why us
Why teams choose RaftLabs
- 01Senior engineers build what they scope
The engineers who assess your problem also build the solution. No bait-and-switch, no offshore handoff after the contract is signed. The team you meet in week 1 ships in week 12.
- 02Fixed price before development starts
We scope the work, calculate the cost, and lock it in writing before any development starts. A scope change is a change request: priced, agreed, or dropped. It never absorbs into the project and appears on the final invoice.
- 03100+ products shipped since 2015
Clients include Vodafone, T-Mobile, Aldi, Nike, Cisco, and Lockheed Martin. Track record across real-time, AI, SaaS, mobile, and enterprise platforms across healthcare, fintech, logistics, and hospitality.
- 04Compliance built in from the start
GDPR, HIPAA, SOC 2 - compliance requirements are scoped in week 1, not retrofitted before launch. We have shipped HIPAA-compliant real-time monitoring systems for US healthcare clients and GDPR-compliant products for European markets.
Polling is costing you more than WebSocket would.
If your server is handling repeated poll requests for data that rarely changes, a properly architected real-time layer will reduce load and improve user experience at the same time. Let us show you what that looks like for your stack.
Real-time development by product
WebSocket Development, persistent bidirectional connections for chat, live feeds, and collaborative tools
Live Collaboration Software, multi-user editing with conflict resolution, presence, and version history
Real-Time Dashboard Development, live operational dashboards that update automatically as data changes
Event-Driven Architecture, Kafka and RabbitMQ message broker design for loosely coupled, resilient systems
What clients say
What our clients say
Three-year average engagement. Founders and operators describing the work in their own words. No marketing varnish.
Georgina D.
United KingdomCEO & Co-Founder, People Supported Technologies
What distinguished RaftLabs from other providers was their fantastic ability to build real-time engagement-based products.
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Read moreFrequently asked questions
WebSocket is best when you need bidirectional, low-latency communication, chat, multiplayer, collaborative editing. Server-Sent Events work well for one-directional server-to-client streams like live feeds and dashboards where the client does not need to send data back. Polling is rarely the right answer at scale; it works for infrequent updates where simplicity matters more than latency. We assess your specific use case and recommend the protocol that matches your latency target, infrastructure budget, and client environment.
WebSocket connections are stateful, which means naive horizontal scaling breaks session continuity. We solve this with a shared pub/sub layer, typically Redis Pub/Sub or a dedicated message broker, so that any server node can fan out messages to any connected client. We load-test the architecture before delivery, confirm your connection targets are met, and document the scaling path for when traffic grows further.
At minimum: a WebSocket-capable server process, a pub/sub layer for multi-node deployments, and a load balancer configured for sticky sessions or connection-aware routing. Depending on your event volume, you may also need a message broker like Kafka or RabbitMQ to decouple producers from consumers. We size the infrastructure as part of the engagement and provide Terraform or deployment config so you control it.
Adding a WebSocket feature to an existing application, a live notification feed, a real-time count, a presence indicator, typically runs $15,000 to $60,000. Building a full real-time platform with collaborative editing, event-driven backend, and live dashboards ranges from $40,000 to $150,000. We scope each engagement before quoting so you get a fixed price tied to a defined outcome, not an hourly estimate that drifts.
A single real-time feature added to an existing application, such as a live notification feed or presence indicator, typically ships in 4 to 6 weeks. A full real-time platform with WebSocket infrastructure, event-driven backend, and collaborative features typically takes 10 to 14 weeks. We define a scope and milestone plan in week 1 before any development starts.
We have shipped real-time systems for healthcare (live patient monitoring, clinical alert routing), fintech (live position tracking, payment status feeds), logistics (fleet tracking, live dispatch maps), SaaS products (in-app notifications, collaborative editing), and operations platforms (live dashboards, IoT sensor feeds). The underlying architecture patterns are consistent; what changes is the compliance layer and the latency target.
Work with us
Tell us what you need. We'll tell you what it would take.
We scope Real-Time App Development in 30 minutes. You walk away with a clear cost, timeline, and approach. No commitment required.
- Scope and cost agreed before work starts. No surprises. No obligation.
- Working prototype within 3 weeks of kickoff.
- Pay by milestone. You see progress before each invoice.
- 60-day post-launch warranty. Bug fixes, UI tweaks, and deployment support. No retainer.
- All conversations are NDA-protected.