Collaborative features — live cursors, co-editing, presence — in days, not months.
Liveblocks for real-time collaboration in Next.js applications — multiplayer cursor presence, collaborative rich text editing with Lexical, shared state synchronization, and the collaboration infrastructure that makes documents and canvases feel alive.
Application that needs collaboration features — multiple users working on the same document, canvas, or form simultaneously — without building the operational transform or CRDT logic from scratch
Real-time collaboration is one of the hardest features to build correctly. Google Docs makes it look simple. The underlying complexity:
Conflict resolution. When two users edit the same document simultaneously, the edits need to be merged without either user's change being lost. This requires Operational Transform (OT) or CRDT (Conflict-free Replicated Data Types) algorithms — decades of distributed systems research.
Presence and awareness. Showing where other users are in the document (live cursors, selection highlights, user avatars) requires low-latency presence state synchronized across all connected clients.
State synchronization. The document state on all connected clients must stay in sync. Handling reconnection, catchup on missed changes, and the edge cases of concurrent edits requires careful implementation.
Building this from scratch takes months. Liveblocks provides the infrastructure:
- Liveblocks Storage. CRDT-based shared state. Multiple clients can modify the same
LiveObject,LiveList, orLiveMapconcurrently — Liveblocks handles conflict resolution. - Presence. Per-user ephemeral state (cursor position, current selection) synchronized in real time.
- Collaborative Text Editing. Liveblocks Lexical/Tiptap integration for rich text editing with built-in OT conflict resolution.
Liveblocks integration with live cursors, presence, and collaborative editing built on a CRDT-based infrastructure that handles conflict resolution automatically
Room configuration
Liveblocks room setup with metadata. Room access control via Liveblocks authentication endpoint.
Presence
`useMyPresence` and `useOthers` for cursor tracking. Mouse/pointer position synchronization. User awareness indicators.
Shared storage
`useStorage` and `useMutation` for collaborative document state. Optimistic updates with server reconciliation.
Collaborative text
`@liveblocks/react-lexical` or `@liveblocks/react-tiptap` for rich text editing. Cursor and selection awareness in the editor.
Notifications
Liveblocks Notifications for activity feeds and @mentions.
One honest number to start.
Fixed-scope, fixed-price. The number below is the starting point — final scope is built from your brief.
Liveblocks integration with live cursors, presence, and collaborative editing built on a CRDT-based infrastructure that handles conflict resolution automatically
Three steps, every time.
The same repeatable engagement on every project. No surprises, no mystery, no billable ambiguity.
Brief & discovery.
We send you questions, then get on a call. Output: a written scope with every step, feature, and integration listed.
Build & ship.
Fixed schedule, weekly reviews. No scope creep unless you change the scope — and if you do, we reprice it transparently.
Warranty & retainer.
30-day warranty on every launch. Most clients stay on a monthly retainer for ongoing features and maintenance.
Why Fixed-Price Matters Here
Collaboration feature scope is defined by the document types and the collaboration model. Fixed price.
Related engagements.
Questions, answered.
Simple real-time (Pusher, Ably): one user edits at a time, others see updates. Liveblocks: multiple users edit simultaneously, conflicts auto-resolved. If two users might edit the same field at the same time, Liveblocks' CRDT handles it correctly where simple pub/sub doesn't.
Y.js is the open-source CRDT library that Liveblocks is built on. Using Y.js directly requires managing the WebSocket server, synchronization, and persistence. Liveblocks is managed infrastructure around Y.js — better DX, no server management.
Collaborative features as part of the application build. Collaboration application from $25k. Fixed-price.
Tell Ryel about your project.
Describe what you’re building and what outcome you need. You’ll have a written, fixed-price scope within the week.