stream-chat

What is stream-chat?

The stream-chat npm package is a powerful tool for building chat applications. It provides a comprehensive set of features for real-time messaging, user management, and chat room creation, among others. It is designed to be highly customizable and scalable, making it suitable for a wide range of applications from simple chat widgets to complex messaging platforms.

What are stream-chat's main functionalities?

Real-time Messaging

This feature allows you to send real-time messages in a chat channel. The code sample demonstrates how to initialize the StreamChat client, create a channel, and send a message.

const StreamChat = require('stream-chat').StreamChat;
const client = new StreamChat('api_key');

async function sendMessage() {
  const channel = client.channel('messaging', 'general', {
    name: 'General Chat',
  });
  await channel.create();
  await channel.sendMessage({
    text: 'Hello, world!',
    user_id: 'user123',
  });
}
sendMessage();

User Management

This feature allows you to manage users within the chat application. The code sample demonstrates how to create or update a user with specific attributes.

const StreamChat = require('stream-chat').StreamChat;
const client = new StreamChat('api_key');

async function createUser() {
  await client.upsertUser({
    id: 'user123',
    name: 'John Doe',
    role: 'user',
  });
}
createUser();

Channel Management

This feature allows you to manage chat channels. The code sample demonstrates how to create a new chat channel with a specific name and type.

const StreamChat = require('stream-chat').StreamChat;
const client = new StreamChat('api_key');

async function createChannel() {
  const channel = client.channel('messaging', 'general', {
    name: 'General Chat',
  });
  await channel.create();
}
createChannel();

Message Reactions

This feature allows users to add reactions to messages. The code sample demonstrates how to send a message and then add a 'like' reaction to that message.

const StreamChat = require('stream-chat').StreamChat;
const client = new StreamChat('api_key');

async function addReaction() {
  const channel = client.channel('messaging', 'general');
  await channel.create();
  const message = await channel.sendMessage({
    text: 'Hello, world!',
    user_id: 'user123',
  });
  await channel.sendReaction(message.id, {
    type: 'like',
    user_id: 'user123',
  });
}
addReaction();

Other packages similar to stream-chat

socket.io

Socket.IO is a library that enables real-time, bidirectional and event-based communication between web clients and servers. While it is more general-purpose and can be used for various real-time applications, it requires more manual setup for chat-specific features compared to stream-chat.

pusher-js

Pusher is a service that provides APIs for building real-time web and mobile applications. Pusher Channels specifically can be used for real-time messaging, but it lacks some of the higher-level abstractions and features specifically tailored for chat applications that stream-chat offers.

firebase

Firebase is a platform developed by Google for creating mobile and web applications. Firebase Realtime Database and Firestore can be used to build real-time chat applications. However, Firebase is a more general-purpose backend-as-a-service and may require more custom development to achieve the same level of chat-specific functionality provided by stream-chat.

README