Real-time updates with WebinarPress Connect

WordPress and PHP aren't build for real-time communications like chats and attendee questions which means that by default the WebinarPress has to ask your web server for any changes every 5 seconds instead of getting updates sent to the browser as soon as they happen.

This not only adds delay to attendee chat and questions but it also adds extra load to your web server.

WebinarPress Connect

To reduce the load on your web server and to make updates like chat and questions instantaneous for all attendees we've added a hosted service for all WebinarPress users called WebinarPress Connect.

This service uses our very fast servers to encrypt and relay your webinar updates to all connected attendees in real-time using web sockets giving instant updates to attendees and removing the load on your server. That means your server will be able to host a very large number of attendees without adding extra stress on your server.

To enable this feature you'll need to make sure that your copy of WebinarPress is activated and that your license has not expired, then enable the Use WebinarPress option in WebinarPress settings.

How does it work?

Once enabled your webinars will be registered with our server via a secure API. Then when attendees access your webinar their browser will automatically connect to our server to receive the updates instead of requesting updates from your web server.

When the webinar host or an attendee makes a change like asking a question, typing a chat message or starting/stopping the webinar the updates will be sent instantly to our servers so all other attendees get the information in real-time.

Is it secure?

Yes! All communications between your website, attendees and our server are encrypted using TLS 1.3 SSL certificate. None of your webinar details or your attendees details, charts or questions are stored on our servers.

Our servers are just used as a pass through, like a network router to send updates to all attendees in real-time. Once the updates have been sent to all attendees and a copy has been sent to your web server the data is removed from our servers. The data is never stored on disk.

What happens if my license expires?

As mentioned above, this service is only available to current and valid license holders, if your license expires and you choose not to renew then WebinarPress will just go back to using your web server for updates.