WebSockets – API

Bun.serve() supports server-side WebSockets, with on-the-fly compression, TLS support, and a Bun-native publish-subscribe API.

⚡️ 7x more throughput — Bun's WebSockets are fast. For a simple chatroom on Linux x64, Bun can handle 7x more requests per second than Node.js + "ws".

Messages sent per second	Runtime	Clients
~700,000	(`Bun.serve`) Bun v0.2.1 (x64)	16
~100,000	(`ws`) Node v18.10.0 (x64)	16

Internally Bun's WebSocket implementation is built on uWebSockets.

Start a WebSocket server

Below is a simple WebSocket server built with Bun.serve, in which all incoming requests are upgraded to WebSocket connections in the fetch handler. The socket handlers are declared in the websocket parameter.

Bun.serve({
  fetch(req, server) {
    // upgrade the request to a WebSocket
    if (server.upgrade(req)) {
      return; // do not return a Response
    }
    return new Response("Upgrade failed", { status: 500 });
  },
  websocket: {}, // handlers
});

The following WebSocket event handlers are supported:

Bun.serve({
  fetch(req, server) {}, // upgrade logic
  websocket: {
    message(ws, message) {}, // a message is received
    open(ws) {}, // a socket is opened
    close(ws, code, message) {}, // a socket is closed
    drain(ws) {}, // the socket is ready to receive more data
  },
});

An API designed for speed

The first argument to each handler is the instance of ServerWebSocket handling the event. The ServerWebSocket class is a fast, Bun-native implementation of WebSocket with some additional features.

Bun.serve({
  fetch(req, server) {}, // upgrade logic
  websocket: {
    message(ws, message) {
      ws.send(message); // echo back the message
    },
  },
});

Sending messages

Each ServerWebSocket instance has a .send() method for sending messages to the client. It supports a range of input types.

ws.send("Hello world"); // string
ws.send(response.arrayBuffer()); // ArrayBuffer
ws.send(new Uint8Array([1, 2, 3])); // TypedArray | DataView

Headers

Once the upgrade succeeds, Bun will send a 101 Switching Protocols response per the spec. Additional headers can be attached to this Response in the call to server.upgrade().

Bun.serve({
  fetch(req, server) {
    const sessionId = await generateSessionId();
    server.upgrade(req, {
      headers: {
        "Set-Cookie": `SessionId=${sessionId}`,
      },
    });
  },
  websocket: {}, // handlers
});

Contextual data

Contextual data can be attached to a new WebSocket in the .upgrade() call. This data is made available on the ws.data property inside the WebSocket handlers.

type WebSocketData = {
  createdAt: number;
  channelId: string;
  authToken: string;
};

// TypeScript: specify the type of `data`
Bun.serve<WebSocketData>({
  fetch(req, server) {
    // use a library to parse cookies
    const cookies = parseCookies(req.headers.get("Cookie"));
    server.upgrade(req, {
      // this object must conform to WebSocketData
      data: {
        createdAt: Date.now(),
        channelId: new URL(req.url).searchParams.get("channelId"),
        authToken: cookies["X-Token"],
      },
    });

    return undefined;
  },
  websocket: {
    // handler called when a message is received
    async message(ws, message) {
      const user = getUserFromToken(ws.data.authToken);

      await saveMessageToDatabase({
        channel: ws.data.channelId,
        message: String(message),
        userId: user.id,
      });
    },
  },
});

To connect to this server from the browser, create a new WebSocket.

browser.js
const socket = new WebSocket("ws://localhost:3000/chat");

socket.addEventListener("message", event => {
  console.log(event.data);
})

Identifying users — The cookies that are currently set on the page will be sent with the WebSocket upgrade request and available on req.headers in the fetch handler. Parse these cookies to determine the identity of the connecting user and set the value of data accordingly.

Pub/Sub

Bun's ServerWebSocket implementation implements a native publish-subscribe API for topic-based broadcasting. Individual sockets can .subscribe() to a topic (specified with a string identifier) and .publish() messages to all other subscribers to that topic (excluding itself). This topic-based broadcast API is similar to MQTT and Redis Pub/Sub.

const server = Bun.serve<{ username: string }>({
  fetch(req, server) {
    const url = new URL(req.url);
    if (url.pathname === "/chat") {
      console.log(`upgrade!`);
      const username = getUsernameFromReq(req);
      const success = server.upgrade(req, { data: { username } });
      return success
        ? undefined
        : new Response("WebSocket upgrade error", { status: 400 });
    }

    return new Response("Hello world");
  },
  websocket: {
    open(ws) {
      const msg = `${ws.data.username} has entered the chat`;
      ws.subscribe("the-group-chat");
      server.publish("the-group-chat", msg);
    },
    message(ws, message) {
      // this is a group chat
      // so the server re-broadcasts incoming message to everyone
      server.publish("the-group-chat", `${ws.data.username}: ${message}`);
    },
    close(ws) {
      const msg = `${ws.data.username} has left the chat`;
      ws.unsubscribe("the-group-chat");
      server.publish("the-group-chat", msg);
    },
  },
});

console.log(`Listening on ${server.hostname}:${server.port}`);

Calling .publish(data) will send the message to all subscribers of a topic except the socket that called .publish(). To send a message to all subscribers of a topic, use the .publish() method on the Server instance.

const server = Bun.serve({
  websocket: {
    // ...
  },
});

// listen for some external event
server.publish("the-group-chat", "Hello world");

Compression

Per-message compression can be enabled with the perMessageDeflate parameter.

Bun.serve({
  fetch(req, server) {}, // upgrade logic
  websocket: {
    // enable compression and decompression
    perMessageDeflate: true,
  },
});

Compression can be enabled for individual messages by passing a boolean as the second argument to .send().

ws.send("Hello world", true);

For fine-grained control over compression characteristics, refer to the Reference.

Backpressure

The .send(message) method of ServerWebSocket returns a number indicating the result of the operation.

-1 — The message was enqueued but there is backpressure
0 — The message was dropped due to a connection issue
1+ — The number of bytes sent

This gives you better control over backpressure in your server.

Timeouts and limits

By default, Bun will close a WebSocket connection if it is idle for 120 seconds. This can be configured with the idleTimeout parameter.

Bun.serve({
  fetch(req, server) {}, // upgrade logic
  websocket: {
    idleTimeout: 60, // 60 seconds

    // ...
  },
});

Bun will also close a WebSocket connection if it receives a message that is larger than 16 MB. This can be configured with the maxPayloadLength parameter.

Bun.serve({
  fetch(req, server) {}, // upgrade logic
  websocket: {
    maxPayloadLength: 1024 * 1024, // 1 MB

    // ...
  },
});

Connect to a `Websocket` server

Bun implements the WebSocket class. To create a WebSocket client that connects to a ws:// or wss:// server, create an instance of WebSocket, as you would in the browser.

const socket = new WebSocket("ws://localhost:3000");

In browsers, the cookies that are currently set on the page will be sent with the WebSocket upgrade request. This is a standard feature of the WebSocket API.

For convenience, Bun lets you setting custom headers directly in the constructor. This is a Bun-specific extension of the WebSocket standard. This will not work in browsers.

const socket = new WebSocket("ws://localhost:3000", {
  headers: {
    // custom headers
  },
});

To add event listeners to the socket:

// message is received
socket.addEventListener("message", event => {});

// socket opened
socket.addEventListener("open", event => {});

// socket closed
socket.addEventListener("close", event => {});

// error handler
socket.addEventListener("error", event => {});

Reference

namespace Bun {
  export function serve(params: {
    fetch: (req: Request, server: Server) => Response | Promise<Response>;
    websocket?: {
      message: (
        ws: ServerWebSocket,
        message: string | ArrayBuffer | Uint8Array,
      ) => void;
      open?: (ws: ServerWebSocket) => void;
      close?: (ws: ServerWebSocket, code: number, reason: string) => void;
      error?: (ws: ServerWebSocket, error: Error) => void;
      drain?: (ws: ServerWebSocket) => void;

      maxPayloadLength?: number; // default: 16 * 1024 * 1024 = 16 MB
      idleTimeout?: number; // default: 120 (seconds)
      backpressureLimit?: number; // default: 1024 * 1024 = 1 MB
      closeOnBackpressureLimit?: boolean; // default: false
      sendPings?: boolean; // default: true
      publishToSelf?: boolean; // default: false

      perMessageDeflate?:
        | boolean
        | {
            compress?: boolean | Compressor;
            decompress?: boolean | Compressor;
          };
    };
  }): Server;
}

type Compressor =
  | `"disable"`
  | `"shared"`
  | `"dedicated"`
  | `"3KB"`
  | `"4KB"`
  | `"8KB"`
  | `"16KB"`
  | `"32KB"`
  | `"64KB"`
  | `"128KB"`
  | `"256KB"`;

interface Server {
  pendingWebSockets: number;
  publish(
    topic: string,
    data: string | ArrayBufferView | ArrayBuffer,
    compress?: boolean,
  ): number;
  upgrade(
    req: Request,
    options?: {
      headers?: HeadersInit;
      data?: any;
    },
  ): boolean;
}

interface ServerWebSocket {
  readonly data: any;
  readonly readyState: number;
  readonly remoteAddress: string;
  send(message: string | ArrayBuffer | Uint8Array, compress?: boolean): number;
  close(code?: number, reason?: string): void;
  subscribe(topic: string): void;
  unsubscribe(topic: string): void;
  publish(topic: string, message: string | ArrayBuffer | Uint8Array): void;
  isSubscribed(topic: string): boolean;
  cork(cb: (ws: ServerWebSocket) => void): void;
}