Realtime chat app with Laravel, VueJS, Laravel Echo, SocketIO, Redis including Queue, Schedule Task, Laravel Horizon

This app contains following features:

• Multiple chat rooms
• Realtime chat with Private and Presence Channel
• Each room contains Share area (everyone can chat) or Private chat with a specific user in the room
• Notification to user on receiving message (both on side bar and on Topbar of browser)
• Bot scheduled message
• Message reaction like Facebook Messenger (Realtime notify others on reaction)
• Celebration animation
• Change message color (private chat)

Check if you have redis installed, by running command: redis-cli

Note: If you're using Windows then install Redis may be harder than MacOS and Linux. Then you can consider running with Docker (as described in next section)

Clone this project.

Run the following commands:

composer install
npm install
cp .env.example .env
php artisan key:generate
npm install -g laravel-echo-server

Then setup your database infor in .env to match yours

Now, migrate and seed the database:

php artisan migrate --seed

Next, config Laravel echo server by running:

laravel-echo-server init

Just choose Yes, and remember to choose redis and http

After that change MIX_FRONTEND_PORT in .env to 6001 (match laravel-echo-server port)

To run the app, run the following commands, each command in a separate terminal:

php artisan serve
npm run watch
laravel-echo-server start
php artisan queue:work

Now access your app at localhost:8000, register an account and try, open another browser tab with another account to test realtime chat.

You can view a real demo here: https://realtime-chat.jamesisme.com

Make sure you installed docker and docker-compose

First create .env file

cp .env.example .env

Edit .env update the following parts:

DB_CONNECTION=mysql
DB_HOST=db
DB_PORT=3306
DB_DATABASE=laravel
DB_USERNAME=laraveluser
DB_PASSWORD=laraveluserpass

...

REDIS_HOST=redis
REDIS_PASSWORD=redis_pass
REDIS_PORT=6379

...

LARAVEL_ECHO_SERVER_REDIS_HOST=redis
LARAVEL_ECHO_SERVER_REDIS_PORT=6379
LARAVEL_ECHO_SERVER_REDIS_PASSWORD=redis_pass
LARAVEL_ECHO_SERVER_AUTH_HOST=http://webserver:80
LARAVEL_ECHO_SERVER_DEBUG=false

...

Next, Run the following commands:

docker run --rm -v $(pwd):/app -w /app composer install --ignore-platform-reqs --no-autoloader --no-dev --no-interaction --no-progress --no-suggest --no-scripts --prefer-dist
docker run --rm -v $(pwd):/app -w /app composer dump-autoload --classmap-authoritative --no-dev --optimize
docker run --rm -v $(pwd):/app -w /app node npm install --production
docker run --rm -v $(pwd):/app -w /app node npm run prod

The commands above are equivalent with:

• composer install <...other options>
• composer dump-autoload <...other options>
• npm install --production
• npm run prod

Run the following command to start application:

docker-compose up -d --build

Now we need to generate project's key migrate and seed database. Run command:

docker-compose exec app php artisan key:generate
docker-compose exec app php artisan migrate --seed

Now access the app at: localhost:4000

If you want to change to another port instead of 4000. Change APP_PORT and MIX_FRONTEND_PORT to the same one you want. Then run following command to rebuild frontend:

docker run --rm -v $(pwd):/app -w /app node npm run prod

Every command with Laravel you need to run it like follow:

docker-compose exec app php artisan <same like normal>

Every command with composer need to run like follow:

docker run --rm -v $(pwd):/app -w /app composer <same like normal>

Every command with npm need to run like follow:

docker run --rm -v $(pwd):/app -w /app node npm run dev/watch/prod

When deploying to production, normally you'll run you app with HTTPS (port 443), then your frontend will be served under HTTPS too. So changing the MIX_FRONTEND_PORT in .env to 443.

Other settings are same

If you're looking for running this app with Docker using non-root users (which is highly recommended in production), then checkout my docker-non-root branch