Requirements for laravel real-time apps like gmail and Github

Question

For implementing a real-time application in Laravel like Gmail or Github , in which all things (such as opening new page, sending mail, inbox, submit forms and etc) occur in one page, I did a lot of research and found that I should use Laravel Pusher package. But I think it is not free for large projects.

Also I read https://www.codetutorial.io/laravel-5-and-socket-io-tutorial/ article (and many other articles) that uses redis with NodeJs .

Regardless of Laravel Pusher , my Question is what is best and usual way to implement real-time apps via Laravel ?

I am using Laravel 5.2

Answer 1

What you are calling real-time apps are really called single page applications or SPAs. Real-time applications are things such as software for airplanes, trains and stock exchanges.

If you want to create SPA you don't necessarily need pushing services. I would suggest you to take a look at these front-end projects:

• Angular js
• React js
• Vue js

Answer 2

As @gurghet pointed out, there is a difference between a SPA and a realtime application. Gmail is indeed a real time application instead of a SPA.

API Comes first:

If you are looking into creating REALTIME Applications, then first of all you have to create an API (REST/SOAP). Laravel and Lumen both provide an excellent code base to start your api in no time.

Choosing the right JS framework:

Once you have an API, you will need a JS framework. When it comes to REAL TIME applications, there are just a hand full of frameworks that will give you true flexibility. Angular being on the top, followed by REACT, BACKBONE and meteor.

Angular has lots of fan following/community, so it should be the appropriate choice.

The Perfect PHP Stack: Laravel + Angular stack is great. Laravel is very flexible so you can do almost any kind of server side scripting with it. It also keeps on inspiring you to write cleaner code each time. While angular is very good with 2 way bindings. Which means that when you pass the same data to a view in different places, angular keeps track of all the changes made to the data. It also has features like PROMISES, where angular doesn't wait to get real data from the db, instead it just assumes that the data should have been updated to the db and just shows you the changes (the ones that it keeps track of) in real time.

The Authentication: The most frustrating part of the whole process, is securely authenticating users ie passing data from angular to laravel. You will have to use OAUTH or JWT for authenticating users. Although both have been around for a while, but you wont find any good code/guides regarding authentication. I have spent lot of time here, but you can always purchase some bootstrapped / properly configured projects on codecanyon.

Sockets are the key: No Real Time system can exist without sockets, you cant just keep hitting the db on regular intervals to check for updated values. Here sockets save the day by informing the system that updates are available, upon which you can grab the updated values from db.

Now a days services like pusher, have solved most of the problems and laravel also comes with a built-in api-client for pusher. But you are always free to use opensource softwares to create your own socketing system eg. socket.io .