Self-Hosting Centrifugo for Real-Time Push Notifications

When implementing server-side push, WebSocket is usually the first thing that comes to mind — but maintaining WebSocket connections yourself is far from simple. You need to handle ping/pong heartbeats, connection management, and reconnection logic. In a microservices architecture, deciding which service owns those connections adds yet another layer of complexity.

We've been running Centrifugo in production for nearly a year, using it to deliver real-time progress notifications for file upload workflows. This talk covers how we integrated this open-source tool so that our backend only needs to call a single RESTful API to push messages to clients — no WebSocket state management required.

Topics covered:

• Centrifugo's core concepts and channel model
• Server setup and getting started
• Backend integration via RESTful API publish
• Frontend SDK connection and subscription
• Practical lessons learned from production