ws

Simple to use, blazing fast, and thoroughly tested WebSocket client and server for Node.js.

ws

Node.js

Simple to use, blazing fast, and thoroughly tested WebSocket client and server for Node.js.

npm GitHub Docs

Fit

Bundle (gzip)

226 B

284 B raw

Install size includes transitive dependencies. Bundle size is gzipped browser payload.

Freshness

The Problem

Node.js has no built-in WebSocket server, and implementing the protocol handshake, framing, and ping/pong keep-alive correctly by hand is impractical for real-time features like chat or live updates.

What It Does

ws provides a minimal, standards-compliant WebSocket implementation for both client and server, with a tiny API and excellent performance. Many higher-level real-time libraries are built on top of it.

Installation

bash

npm install ws

Usage Example

import { WebSocketServer } from "ws";

const wss = new WebSocketServer({ port: 8080 });

wss.on("connection", (socket) => {
  socket.on("message", (data) => {
    socket.send(`echo: ${data}`);
  });
  socket.send("connected");
});

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