Draft. The packages work and are tested against Pikoman and Pusher, but are not published yet.

Switch from Pusher and keep your subscribe and bind

Pikoman has packages with the same calls as Pusher's libraries. You change an import and your keys. Your channels, events, subscribe, bind, trigger and your auth endpoint stay as they are.

Under the surface the packages speak Pikoman, so we still never hold a secret of yours: you sign with an Ed25519 key and we keep only the public half. Laravel Echo works through the same package, so Echo.private, Echo.join, whisper and toOthers() work as before.

In the browser: One import
On the server: The library and its keys
Price: Free to 100 connections, then €49 a month

1. Get your keys

	At Pusher	At Pikoman
In the browser	Key `a1b2c3d4e5f6a7b8c9d0` and a cluster	App id `app-yourapp`, no cluster
Publishing	App id, key and secret	An API key `sk_…`, which may be limited to publishing
Letting users into private channels	The same secret	The app's private key, one line of base64
What the provider holds	Your secret	Public keys only

2. Laravel

Download the driver, install it and change .env. Your events, routes/channels.php and ShouldBroadcast classes stay the same.

terminal

mkdir -p packages
curl -o packages/pikoman-compat-laravel-0.1.0.zip https://pikoman.se/downloads/pikoman-compat-laravel-0.1.0.zip
composer config repositories.pikoman artifact ./packages
composer require pikoman/compat-laravel
npm install https://pikoman.se/downloads/pikoman-compat-0.1.0.tgz

Then the keys in .env. VITE_PUSHER_APP_KEY keeps its name, so Echo needs no new setting.

.env, at Pusher

BROADCAST_CONNECTION=pusher

PUSHER_APP_ID=1234567
PUSHER_APP_KEY=a1b2c3d4e5f6a7b8c9d0
PUSHER_APP_SECRET=f0e1d2c3b4a5...
PUSHER_APP_CLUSTER=eu

VITE_PUSHER_APP_KEY="${PUSHER_APP_KEY}"
VITE_PUSHER_APP_CLUSTER="${PUSHER_APP_CLUSTER}"

.env, at Pikoman

BROADCAST_CONNECTION=pikoman

PIKOMAN_APP=app-yourapp
PIKOMAN_API_KEY=sk_...
PIKOMAN_PRIVATE_KEY=MC4CAQAwBQYDK2Vw...
# Only for encrypted channels. Your own key, never sent to us:
# openssl rand -base64 32
PIKOMAN_ENCRYPTION_KEY=...

VITE_PUSHER_APP_KEY="${PIKOMAN_APP}"
VITE_PUSHER_APP_CLUSTER=eu

In resources/js/echo.js, one line changes: the import.

echo.js, at Pusher

import Echo from "laravel-echo";
import Pusher from "pusher-js";
window.Pusher = Pusher;

window.Echo = new Echo({
  broadcaster: "pusher",
  key: import.meta.env.VITE_PUSHER_APP_KEY,
  cluster: import.meta.env.VITE_PUSHER_APP_CLUSTER,
  forceTLS: true,
});

echo.js, at Pikoman

import Echo from "laravel-echo";
import Pusher from "@pikoman/compat";
window.Pusher = Pusher;

window.Echo = new Echo({
  broadcaster: "pusher",
  key: import.meta.env.VITE_PUSHER_APP_KEY,
  cluster: import.meta.env.VITE_PUSHER_APP_CLUSTER,
  forceTLS: true,
});

Then php artisan config:clear and npm run build. Your listeners stay as they are:

Unchanged

Echo.private(`orders.${userId}`)
  .listen("OrderShipped", (e) => console.log(e.order.id));

Echo.join(`room.${roomId}`)
  .here((users) => showUsers(users))
  .joining((user) => addUser(user))
  .leaving((user) => removeUser(user))
  .whisper("typing", { name: me.name });

3. pusher-js without Laravel

Install it with npm install https://pikoman.se/downloads/pikoman-compat-0.1.0.tgz. The import and the key change; subscribe, bind and trigger do not.

At Pusher

import Pusher from "pusher-js";

const pusher = new Pusher("a1b2c3d4e5f6a7b8c9d0", {
  cluster: "eu",
  channelAuthorization: { endpoint: "/pusher/auth" },
});

const room = pusher.subscribe("presence-room");
room.bind("new-message", (data) => show(data));
room.trigger("client-typing", { on: true });

At Pikoman

import Pusher from "@pikoman/compat";

const pusher = new Pusher("app-yourapp", {
  cluster: "eu",
  channelAuthorization: { endpoint: "/pusher/auth" },
});

const room = pusher.subscribe("presence-room");
room.bind("new-message", (data) => show(data));
room.trigger("client-typing", { on: true });

4. Your server

The library and its settings change. trigger and authorizeChannel take the same arguments, so the code that calls them, your auth endpoint included, does not.

Node, at Pusher

import Pusher from "pusher";

const pusher = new Pusher({
  appId: "1234567",
  key: "a1b2c3d4e5f6a7b8c9d0",
  secret: process.env.PUSHER_SECRET,
  cluster: "eu",
});

Node, at Pikoman

import Pusher from "@pikoman/compat/server";

const pusher = new Pusher({
  app: "app-yourapp",
  apiKey: process.env.PIKOMAN_API_KEY,
  privateKey: process.env.PIKOMAN_PRIVATE_KEY,
});

Unchanged

await pusher.trigger("orders", "order-shipped", { id: 1042 });

app.post("/pusher/auth", (req, res) => {
  const { socket_id, channel_name } = req.body;
  if (!mayJoin(req.user, channel_name)) return res.sendStatus(403);
  res.send(pusher.authorizeChannel(socket_id, channel_name, {
    user_id: req.user.id,
    user_info: { name: req.user.name },
  }));
});

PHP without Laravel is not covered yet. Write to hello@pikoman.se if you need it, and we will add it.

5. Move without downtime

Deploy the server change and the browser change together. New page loads connect to Pikoman.
Pages that were open before the deploy still listen at Pusher. If that matters, publish to both for a day: keep the old Pusher client next to the new one and call trigger on each.
When the Pusher dashboard shows no connections, cancel the Pusher plan.

What the adapter covers

Pusher feature	With the adapter
Public, private and presence channels	Yes
Presence members (`here`, `joining`, `leaving`, `members.count`)	Yes, counted per user as at Pusher
Client events (`client-…`, Echo's `whisper`)	Yes, 10 a second per connection, as at Pusher
`trigger` to one or many channels	Yes
`toOthers()` and `socket_id`	Yes. The sender's id travels in the event's data, which then has to be an object, as Laravel's always is
`private-encrypted-` channels	Yes. Your backend keeps the master key (`PIKOMAN_ENCRYPTION_KEY`, or `encryptionMasterKeyBase64` as in Pusher's library) and we never see it. Encrypted channels
Channel queries from the server library	Not yet; `GET /channels` works over HTTP
Webhooks	Pikoman's own webhooks, in a different format
User sign-in, watchlists, cache channels	No
Pusher's iOS and Android libraries, push notifications (Beams)	No

Need something marked "not yet"? Write to hello@pikoman.se and we will add it. Channel names follow the same rules as at Pusher: up to 164 characters from A-Z a-z 0-9 _ - = @ , . ;.

Try it on staging first

The free plan has 100 connections and 200,000 messages a day, enough to run your staging site on Pikoman before you move production.

Get an app key Compare with Pusher

1. Get your keys

2. Laravel

3. pusher-js without Laravel

4. Your server

5. Move without downtime

What the adapter covers

Try it on staging first

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