Ably Pub/Sub PHP SDK

Build using Ably’s Pub/Sub PHP SDK, supported on all popular platforms and frameworks.

Ably Pub/Sub provides flexible APIs that deliver features such as pub-sub messaging, message history, presence, and push notifications. Utilizing Ably’s realtime messaging platform, applications benefit from its highly performant, reliable, and scalable infrastructure.

Find out more:

• Ably Pub/Sub docs.
• Ably Pub/Sub examples.

Getting started

Everything you need to get started with Ably:

• Getting started with Pub/Sub using PHP.
• SDK Setup for PHP.

Supported platforms

Ably aims to support a wide range of platforms. If you experience any compatibility issues, open an issue in the repository or contact Ably support.

[!IMPORTANT] PHP SDK versions < 1.1.9 will be deprecated from November 1, 2025.

Laravel packages

For Laravel applications, consider these framework-integrated alternatives that provide Laravel integration with automatic configuration and native broadcasting support, eliminating the boilerplate setup required when using the raw PHP SDK directly:

• Ably Pub/Sub PHP Laravel SDK - Laravel integration package with clean facade and dependency injection interface.
• Ably Broadcaster for Laravel - Official Laravel broadcaster for real-time event broadcasting.

Installation

To get started with your project, install the package:

composer require ably/ably-php

Usage

The following code connects to Ably's REST messaging service, gets reference to a channel to receive messages, and publishes a test message to that same channel:

// Initialize Ably REST client
$ably = new AblyRest(['key' => 'your-ably-api-key', 'clientId' => 'me']);

// Get a reference to the 'test-channel' channel
$channel = $ably->channel('test-channel');

// Publish a test message to the channel
$channel->publish('test-event', 'hello world');

Releases

The CHANGELOG.md contains details of the latest releases for this SDK. You can also view all Ably releases on changelog.ably.com.

Contributing

Read the CONTRIBUTING.md guidelines to contribute to Ably.

Support, feedback, and troubleshooting

For help or technical support, visit the Ably Support page.

Ably REST API

This SDK currently supports only the Ably REST API. For realtime capabilities, you can use the MQTT adapter alongside Mosquitto PHP to implement Ably's Realtime features.