Keep the socket alive.
Let your functions disappear.
Cortlet maintains persistent WebSocket connections and translates realtime activity into ordinary HTTP requests your serverless backend already understands.
SOCKET
Persistent
Cortlet keeps it alive
BACKEND
HTTP
No socket server required
COMPUTE
Stateless
Functions stay short-lived
The mismatch
WebSockets stay.
Functions don't.
WebSockets depend on long-lived connection state. Serverless compute is designed to run briefly and disappear.
WEBSOCKET
Long-lived
SERVERLESS FUNCTION
Short-lived
The architecture
One persistent layer.
Everything else stays HTTP.
WebSocket
wss://connect.cortlet.com
Persistent gateway
Connection stays alive
HTTP endpoint
POST /events
Translation
Socket event in.
HTTP request out.
What tends to happen today
Realtime adds a second architecture.
Connection databases
Your application starts storing connection IDs simply because the compute handling events cannot retain them.
Callback APIs
Returning a response may not send anything back over the socket, so the backend needs another path just to reply.
Provider-specific plumbing
Gateway APIs, cloud SDKs, IAM permissions, route keys, and connection lifecycle logic leak into application code.
Disconnect cleanup
Dropped connections, stale mappings, reconnects, and failed disconnect events become your responsibility.
Cortlet's thesis
Transport state
should stay out of
your application.
Your application should care about users, messages, jobs, and business logic — not which gateway connection ID happens to belong to a browser tab.
Focused v1
Just the layer
serverless is missing.
Persistent connections
Cortlet maintains long-lived WebSocket connections independently from your compute.
Webhook events
Connect, message, and disconnect activity is translated into ordinary HTTP requests.
Connection context
Your backend receives enough information to understand the event without implementing the transport layer itself.
Simple response flow
We are exploring mapping normal HTTP responses back to the originating connection for basic request-response flows.
Intentionally narrow
Not another giant realtime platform.
Good fits
Realtime without
realtime-everything.
Notifications
Push application events to connected clients without maintaining your own always-on WebSocket server.
Background job progress
Keep users updated while serverless jobs run independently from the persistent connection.
Direct messaging
Handle simple point-to-point realtime interactions while your backend stays HTTP-native.
AI application events
Move realtime interaction events between a connected client and stateless backend handlers.
Backend neutral
If it accepts HTTP,
Cortlet can talk to it.
Current status
We're validating
before we build.
Cortlet's production WebSocket gateway is not available yet. We're validating the architecture with developers before committing to the full build.
If this solves a real infrastructure problem for your project, joining the waitlist is the strongest signal you can give us.
Cortlet