Rails 8 introduces Solid Cable, a database-backed adapter for Action Cable that eliminates the need for Redis when implementing WebSocket functionality. The guide walks through building a real-time chat application using Action Cable with Solid Cable, covering channel setup, client-side JavaScript integration, and database configuration. Solid Cable polls the database for new messages every 100ms by default, stores messages for 24 hours, and can use a separate database to isolate real-time messaging load from primary application data. This completes Rails 8's "Solid Trifecta" alongside Solid Queue and Solid Cache, enabling developers to build real-time features with minimal infrastructure overhead.
Table of contents
Why use Rails Action Cable?What is Solid Cable then?Building a Rails 8 app with Solid CableDeploying Rails Action Cable to productionConfiguring polling intervalsSolid Cable is an essential pillar of the Solid TrifectaSort: