Build any realtime experience using Ably’s Pub/Sub .NET SDK. Supported on all popular platforms and frameworks, including Unity and MAUI.
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:
Everything you need to get started with Ably:
| Platform | Support |
|---|---|
| .NET Standard | 2.0+ |
| .NET | 6.0+, .NET Core 2.0+ |
| .NET Framework | 4.6.2+ |
| Mono | 5.4+ |
| Xamarin.Android | 8.0+ |
| Xamarin.iOS | 10.14+ |
| Xamarin.Mac | 3.8+ |
| Unity | 2019.x+ |
| MAUI | .NET 6.0+ |
Important
SDK versions < 1.2.12 will be deprecated from November 1, 2025.
The SDK is available as a nuget package. To get started with your project, install the package from the Package Manager Console or the .NET CLI.
Package Manager Console:
PM> Install-Package ably.io.NET CLI in your project directory:
dotnet add package ably.ioWhen using Ably in a MAUI project, be aware of potential issues caused by assembly trimming, as ably-dotnet relies on the reflection API.
Add the following to your .csproj file to prevent trimming of the IO.Ably assembly:
<ItemGroup>
<TrimmerRootAssembly Include="IO.Ably" />
</ItemGroup>The following code connects to Ably's realtime messaging service, subscribes to a channel to receive messages, and publishes a test message to that same channel:
// Initialize Ably Realtime client
var realtime = new AblyRealtime("your-ably-api-key");
// Wait for connection to be established
realtime.Connection.On(ConnectionEvent.Connected, args =>
{
Console.WriteLine("Connected to Ably");
});
// Get a reference to the 'test' channel
IRealtimeChannel channel = realtime.Channels.Get("test");
// Subscribe to all messages published to this channel
channel.Subscribe(message =>
{
Console.WriteLine($"Received message: {message.Data}");
});
// Publish a test message to the channel
await channel.PublishAsync("test-event", "Hello World!");The CHANGELOG.md contains details of the latest releases for this SDK. You can also view all Ably releases on changelog.ably.com.
Read the CONTRIBUTING.md guidelines to contribute to Ably.
For help or technical support, visit Ably's support page or GitHub Issues for community-reported bugs and discussions.
In high-throughput scenarios, for example, sending messages >50KB, the default WebSocket buffer in the .NET Framework can cause instability or errors. This issue is discussed in GitHub issue #446.
To mitigate this, increase the WebSocket buffer size to the maximum allowed (64KB):
var maxBufferSize = 64 * 1024;
var options = new ClientOptions();
var websocketOptions = new MsWebSocketOptions
{
SendBufferInBytes = maxBufferSize,
ReceiveBufferInBytes = maxBufferSize
};
options.TransportFactory = new MsWebSocketTransport.TransportFactory(websocketOptions);
var realtime = new AblyRealtime(options);