How to Implement a WebSocket Server in Rust

Web
2026-04-17T12:05:42+00:00
Implement a Rust WebSocket server using tokio-tungstenite to handle async connections and bidirectional messaging.

Use the tokio-tungstenite crate with the tokio runtime to create a non-blocking WebSocket server. This setup handles the async I/O required for real-time bidirectional communication.

use tokio_tungstenite::tungstenite::Message;

#[tokio::main]
async fn main() {
    let server = tokio::net::TcpListener::bind("127.0.0.1:8080").await.unwrap();
    println!("Listening on ws://127.0.0.1:8080");

    loop {
        let (socket, _) = tokio_tungstenite::accept_async(server.accept().await.unwrap()).await.unwrap();
        tokio::spawn(async move {
            let (mut write, mut read) = socket.split();
            while let Ok(Some(msg)) = read.next().await {
                if let Err(e) = write.send(msg).await {
                    eprintln!("Error sending: {e}");
                    break;
                }
            }
        });
    }
}

Add tokio = { version = "1", features = ["full"] } and tokio-tungstenite = "0.24" to your Cargo.toml.