Soluchat

Context

Soluchat is a real-time messaging application meant to replace an email thread between project teams spread across several time zones.

Constraints

• Perceived latency under 200ms on unstable connections.
• History browsable without reloading the entire conversation.
• No dependency on a third-party messaging service.

Stack

React, TypeScript on the client. Backend in Rust, communication over WebSocket.

Decisions & trade-offs

The backend was written in Rust rather than Node: the learning cost was real, but predictable memory management and the absence of GC pauses mattered more on connections that were already fragile.

Client-side state stayed deliberately simple — no global state management library. At this scale, one would have added indirection without solving a real problem.

What didn't work

The first version reloaded the entire history on every reconnection, which made network drops very costly. Cursor-based pagination arrived in the second iteration, after measuring the impact.

Outcome

Messaging used daily by project teams, with browsable history and seamless reconnection.