Flutter Gems
Flutter Gems is a curated list of 7250+ useful Dart & Flutter packages that are categorized based on functionality.
Top Flutter WebSocket and RPC packages
Last updated: May 18, 2026
WebSockets provide a persistent, low-latency, full-duplex communication channel between the client and the server. They are essential for real-time multiplayer games, live chat apps, and collaborative editing tools.
Best Practices for WebSockets
- Heartbeats/Pings: To prevent load balancers or mobile OS background managers from silently dropping the persistent TCP connection, implement a ping/pong heartbeat mechanism every ~30 seconds.
- State Recovery: Mobile apps frequently drop connections when switching from Wi-Fi to Cellular. Implement robust reconnection logic and synchronize missed messages upon reconnection.
- Security: Always use Secure WebSockets (
wss://instead ofws://) to encrypt the data frame payload in transit and prevent Man-in-the-Middle (MITM) attacks.
The complete list of WebSocket clients, Socket.io wrappers, and real-time communication packages is provided below.
vm_service
👍 59 ⬇️ 9.9M
Dart 3 compatibleMaintenance Status: Good
A library to communicate with a service implementing the Dart VM service protocol.
web_socket_channel
👍 1.63K ⬇️ 6.6M
Dart 3 compatibleMaintenance Status: Average
StreamChannel wrappers for WebSockets. Provides a cross-platform WebSocketChannel API, a cross-platform implementation of that API that communicates over an underlying StreamChannel.
shelf_web_socket
👍 155 ⬇️ 7.3M
Dart 3 compatibleMaintenance Status: Average
A shelf handler that wires up a listener for every connection.
web_socket
👍 61 ⬇️ 5.4M
Dart 3 compatibleMaintenance Status: Average
Any easy-to-use library for communicating with WebSockets that has multiple implementations.
json_rpc_2
👍 111 ⬇️ 5M
Dart 3 compatibleMaintenance Status: Good
Utilities to write a client or server using the JSON-RPC 2.0 spec.
dds_service_extensions
👍 6 ⬇️ 4.7M
Dart 3 compatibleMaintenance Status: Good
Extension methods for `package:vm_service`, used to make requests a Dart Development Service (DDS) instance.
vm_service_interface
👍 3 ⬇️ 4.3M
Dart 3 compatibleMaintenance Status: Average
A library providing an interface to implement the Dart VM service protocol.
socket_io_client
👍 1.54K ⬇️ 157.5K
Dart 3 compatibleMaintenance Status: Good
Dartlang port of socket.io-client for web, flutter, dartvm to use
grpc
👍 458 ⬇️ 310.4K
Dart 3 compatibleMaintenance Status: Good
Dart implementation of gRPC, a high performance, open-source universal RPC framework.
mqtt_client
👍 544 ⬇️ 57.4K
Dart 3 compatibleMaintenance Status: Good
A server and browser based MQTT client for Dart supporting normal, secure sockets and websockets.
web_socket_client
👍 213 ⬇️ 34.7K
Dart 3 compatibleMaintenance Status: Good
A simple WebSocket client for Dart which includes automatic reconnection logic.
socket_io_common
👍 8 ⬇️ 215.5K
Dart 3 compatibleMaintenance Status: Average
Socket.io common parser library.
stomp_dart_client
👍 137 ⬇️ 31.9K
Dart 3 compatibleMaintenance Status: Good
Dart STOMP client for easy messaging interoperability. Build with flutter in mind, but should work for every dart application.
socket_io
👍 133 ⬇️ 1.5K
Dart 3 compatibleMaintenance Status: Poor
Port of JS/Node library Socket.io. It enables real-time, bidirectional and event-based communication cross-platform.
mqtt5_client
👍 71 ⬇️ 47.9K
Dart 3 compatibleMaintenance Status: Good
A server and browser based MQTT5 client for Dart supporting normal, secure sockets and websockets.
ws
👍 86 ⬇️ 1.5K
Dart 3 compatibleMaintenance Status: Poor
WS: A compact, highly efficient WebSocket library. Easily establish, manage, and reconnect WebSocket connections in real-time apps.
phoenix_socket
👍 57 ⬇️ 4.7K
Dart 3 compatibleMaintenance Status: Average
PhoenixSocket provides a feature-complete implementation of Phoenix Sockets, using a single API based on StreamChannels compatible with any deployment of Flutter.
dart_frog_web_socket
👍 55 ⬇️ 2.6K
Dart 3 compatibleMaintenance Status: Good
WebSocket support for Dart Frog — a fast, minimalistic backend framework for Dart.
tcp_socket_connection
👍 42 ⬇️ 214
Dart 3 compatibleMaintenance Status: Poor
A flutter package to connect, listen to and send messages over tcp sockets.
dart_nats
👍 39 ⬇️ 1.8K
Dart 3 compatibleMaintenance Status: Average
A Dart client for the NATS messaging system. Design to use with Dart and flutter.
websocket_universal
👍 36 ⬇️ 572
Dart 3 compatibleMaintenance Status: Good
Convenient websocket handler for all platforms (both IO and web/HTML). Websocket messages routing, statuses and other features have easy-to-use interface.
w_transport
👍 3 ⬇️ 32.9K
Dart 3 compatibleMaintenance Status: Good
Transport library for sending HTTP requests and opening WebSockets. Platform-independent with builtin support for browser and Dart VM (even supports SockJS). Includes mock utilities for testing.
action_cable
👍 22 ⬇️ 1.4K
Dart 3 compatibleMaintenance Status: Average
ActionCable client port in dart, available in web, dartVM and flutter.
sockjs_client_wrapper
👍 0 ⬇️ 24K
Dart 3 compatibleMaintenance Status: Good
A Dart wrapper for the `sockjs-client` JS library.
flutter_gundb
👍 14 ⬇️ 24
Dart 3 compatibleMaintenance Status: Poor
A gunDB port P2P encrypted Communication between multiple users.
phoenix_wings
👍 13 ⬇️ 223
Dart 3 compatibleMaintenance Status: Poor
Phoenix Channel client for Dart
rpc_dart
👍 5 ⬇️ 1.8K
Dart 3 compatibleMaintenance Status: Good
Transport-agnostic RPC framework with contracts, streaming and included transports.
socket_io_adapter
👍 6 ⬇️ 20
Dart 3 compatibleMaintenance Status: Average
This package is a wrapper for socket_io_client, simplifying connection to a socket.io server, event listening, and event emission to the server.
adhara_socket_io
👍 86 ⬇️ 200
Maintenance Status: Poor
Websocket by socket.io for flutter by adhara, supports both iOS and Android
laravel_echo
👍 68 ⬇️ 1.4K
Maintenance Status: Poor
Port of official Laravel Echo package for your Flutter apps.
websocket_manager
👍 44 ⬇️ 141
Maintenance Status: Poor
A Flutter plugin for Android and iOS supports websocket connection