Scaling Laravel Reverb WebSockets in Production | Mohamed Said [ ![Mohamed Said](https://cdn.msaied.com/01KT78WE565VEMM3PSNQAAB0MH.png) Mohamed Said Laravel Backend Engineer ](https://www.msaied.com) [ Home ](https://www.msaied.com) [ Projects ](https://www.msaied.com/projects) [ Articles ](https://www.msaied.com/articles) [ Certificates ](https://www.msaied.com/certificates) [ Contact ](https://www.msaied.com#contact-section) [ ](https://github.com/EG-Mohamed) [ Home ](https://www.msaied.com) [ Projects ](https://www.msaied.com/projects) [ Articles ](https://www.msaied.com/articles) [ Certificates ](https://www.msaied.com/certificates) [ Contact ](https://www.msaied.com#contact-section) [ home ](https://www.msaied.com) [ articles ](https://www.msaied.com/articles) Laravel Reverb in Production: Scaling WebSockets Beyond a Single Server On this page 1. [ The Gap Between Demo and Production ](#the-gap-between-demo-and-production) 2. [ Problem 1: Multiple App Servers, One Reverb Node ](#problem-1-multiple-app-servers-one-reverb-node) 3. [ Problem 2: Horizontal Reverb Scaling ](#problem-2-horizontal-reverb-scaling) 4. [ Problem 3: Reconnect Storms After a Deploy ](#problem-3-reconnect-storms-after-a-deploy) 5. [ Tuning Connection Limits ](#tuning-connection-limits) 6. [ Takeaways ](#takeaways) ![Laravel Reverb in Production: Scaling WebSockets Beyond a Single Server](https://cdn.msaied.com/580/851fec3976838708af1706f705fe70cd.png) #laravel #reverb #websockets #broadcasting #redis Laravel Reverb in Production: Scaling WebSockets Beyond a Single Server ========================================================================= 22 Aug 2026 4 min read ![Mohamed Said](https://cdn.msaied.com/01KT78WE565VEMM3PSNQAAB0MJ.jpg) Mohamed Said Table of contents 1. [ 01 The Gap Between Demo and Production ](#the-gap-between-demo-and-production) 2. [ 02 Problem 1: Multiple App Servers, One Reverb Node ](#problem-1-multiple-app-servers-one-reverb-node) 3. [ 03 Problem 2: Horizontal Reverb Scaling ](#problem-2-horizontal-reverb-scaling) 4. [ 04 Problem 3: Reconnect Storms After a Deploy ](#problem-3-reconnect-storms-after-a-deploy) 5. [ 05 Tuning Connection Limits ](#tuning-connection-limits) 6. [ 06 Takeaways ](#takeaways) The Gap Between Demo and Production ----------------------------------- Laravel Reverb ships with a compelling zero-dependency story: one `php artisan reverb:start` command and you have a WebSocket server. That works brilliantly on a single Forge server. The moment you add a second app server — or your connection count climbs past a few thousand — you need a deliberate scaling plan. This article covers the three concrete problems you will face and how to solve each one. --- Problem 1: Multiple App Servers, One Reverb Node ------------------------------------------------ Your Laravel app runs on two EC2 instances behind a load balancer. Both instances dispatch broadcast events. Only one instance runs Reverb. The instance that *doesn't* host Reverb still needs to push messages to it. Reverb solves this with a **Redis pub/sub backend**. Configure it in `config/reverb.php`: ```php 'servers' => [ 'reverb' => [ // ... 'scaling' => [ 'driver' => 'redis', 'connection' => 'default', // your Redis connection name ], ], ], ``` With this in place, every app server publishes broadcast events to Redis. The Reverb process subscribes and fans them out to connected clients. Your app servers never need a direct TCP connection to Reverb. > **Important:** Use a dedicated Redis logical database or a separate Redis instance for Reverb pub/sub. Mixing it with your cache or queue database makes debugging latency spikes much harder. --- Problem 2: Horizontal Reverb Scaling ------------------------------------ A single Reverb process is single-threaded by design (it runs on ReactPHP's event loop). You can scale vertically to a point, but eventually you need multiple Reverb processes. Run multiple Reverb workers and put a **sticky-session-aware load balancer** in front of them. Nginx with `ip_hash` is the simplest option: ```nginx upstream reverb { ip_hash; server 10.0.0.10:8080; server 10.0.0.11:8080; } server { listen 443 ssl; location / { proxy_pass http://reverb; proxy_http_version 1.1; proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade; proxy_set_header Connection "Upgrade"; proxy_set_header Host $host; proxy_read_timeout 3600s; } } ``` Sticky sessions ensure a client's WebSocket upgrade and subsequent frames all hit the same Reverb worker. Because all workers share the Redis pub/sub channel, a broadcast from any app server reaches every connected client regardless of which worker they landed on. --- Problem 3: Reconnect Storms After a Deploy ------------------------------------------ When you restart Reverb (e.g., during a deploy), every connected client disconnects simultaneously. Laravel Echo's default reconnect strategy uses a fixed 1-second delay, so thousands of clients hammer the server at once. Override Echo's reconnect options on the client side: ```javascript import Echo from 'laravel-echo'; import Pusher from 'pusher-js'; window.Echo = new Echo({ broadcaster: 'reverb', key: import.meta.env.VITE_REVERB_APP_KEY, wsHost: import.meta.env.VITE_REVERB_HOST, wsPort: import.meta.env.VITE_REVERB_PORT, forceTLS: true, enabledTransports: ['ws', 'wss'], // Pusher-js reconnect options activityTimeout: 30000, pongTimeout: 6000, }); ``` Pusher-js uses exponential backoff internally; the key is ensuring `activityTimeout` is long enough that routine Reverb restarts (< 5 s) don't trigger a reconnect at all. Pair this with a **zero-downtime Reverb restart** using Supervisor: ```ini [program:reverb] command=php /var/www/artisan reverb:start --host=0.0.0.0 --port=8080 autostart=true autorestart=true stopwaitsecs=10 ``` Supervisor's `stopwaitsecs` gives Reverb time to drain existing connections before the new process starts. --- Tuning Connection Limits ------------------------ Reverb inherits ReactPHP's file-descriptor limits. On Linux, the default is 1024 open files per process. Raise it in your Supervisor config: ```ini [program:reverb] ; ... minfds=65536 ``` And confirm your OS-level limit: ```bash ulimit -n 65536 ``` --- Takeaways --------- - Enable the Redis scaling driver so all app servers can publish through a single Reverb cluster. - Use sticky-session load balancing (Nginx `ip_hash`) in front of multiple Reverb workers. - Tune Echo's `activityTimeout` to survive short Reverb restarts without a reconnect storm. - Raise file-descriptor limits in Supervisor and at the OS level before you hit connection ceilings. - Keep Reverb's Redis pub/sub on a dedicated database to isolate latency from cache/queue traffic. Found this useful? [ ](https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.msaied.com%2Farticles%2Flaravel-reverb-in-production-scaling-websockets-beyond-a-single-server-1&text=Laravel+Reverb+in+Production%3A+Scaling+WebSockets+Beyond+a+Single+Server) [ ](https://www.linkedin.com/sharing/share-offsite/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.msaied.com%2Farticles%2Flaravel-reverb-in-production-scaling-websockets-beyond-a-single-server-1) Frequently Asked Questions ---------------------------- 3 questions Q01 Does Laravel Reverb support clustering without Redis? No. Without the Redis scaling driver, each Reverb process maintains its own in-memory connection table. Broadcasts published by an app server that doesn't host that Reverb process will never reach clients. Redis pub/sub is required for any multi-process or multi-server setup. Q02 Can I run Reverb behind AWS ALB instead of Nginx? Yes, but ALB requires sticky sessions via a cookie (not IP hash). Enable 'Stickiness' on the ALB target group with a duration longer than your longest expected WebSocket session. Without stickiness, WebSocket upgrade requests may be routed to a different target than subsequent frames, causing immediate disconnects. Q03 How do I monitor active Reverb connections in production? Reverb exposes a built-in statistics endpoint when you enable the `reverb.apps.*.statistics` option. You can also track connection counts via the Redis pub/sub channel subscriber count, or instrument the Reverb event loop with a custom ReactPHP timer that publishes metrics to your observability stack. 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