What's new in Liveblocks: 2025 updates

This year we've been busy adding features that make collaboration smoother, introduced some cool AI tools, and made our pricing way more fair for everyone.

Thread subscriptions: Now users can follow conversations even if they haven't commented yet.
AI development helper: Our new MCP server lets you use AI to build faster.
Better billing: First-time visitors don't count toward your monthly user limit anymore.

Upgrade now

Want to try out these new features? Just run this command to get the latest version:

npx create-liveblocks-app@latest --upgrade

If you're still on version 2.23 or older, make sure you check our upgrade guides first before updating.

Subscribe to threads

Here's something users have been asking for - you can now follow threads without having to comment in them first. When someone adds a new comment to a thread you're subscribed to, you'll get notified in your inbox.

It works both ways too. If you're getting too many notifications from a thread you commented in, you can easily unsubscribe. You'll see the new subscribe/unsubscribe option right in the thread menu and in your notifications.

Corresponding hooks

We've also added some new hooks so you can build this functionality into your own components. Here's how you can add a subscribe button:

import { useSubscribeToThread } from "@liveblocks/react/suspense";

function SubscribeButton({ threadId }) {
  const subscribeToThread = useSubscribeToThread();

  return (
    <button onClick={() => subscribeToThread(threadId)}>
      🔔 Subscribe to thread
    </button>
  );
}

We've also made the existing hooks simpler to use. Check out this updated example:

import { useThreadSubscription } from "@liveblocks/react/suspense";

function SubscribeButton({ threadId }) {
  const { status, subscribe, unsubscribe } = useThreadSubscription(threadId);

  if (status === "subscribed") {
    return <button onClick={unsubscribe}>🔕 Unsubscribe</button>;
  }

  return <button onClick={subscribe}>🔔 Subscribe</button>;
}

Updated API names

We've renamed some things to make them clearer. Anything that used to be called roomNotifications is now called roomSubscriptions - it just makes more sense. You can find all the details in our upgrade guide.

MCP server

This one's pretty exciting. We built an MCP server that lets you chat with AI tools like Cursor and Claude while you're building your app. The AI can actually help you create rooms, write comments, send notifications, read your real-time data - basically 39 different things.

Setting it up is super easy - just one command. Check out our MCP server documentation to get started.

Fairer billing with first day free

We've completely changed how we count users, and it's going to save you money. Now you only pay for people who come back after their first visit. So if someone just checks out your app once and never returns, they won't count toward your monthly active users.

This makes it way easier to predict your costs as you grow, especially if you get a lot of one-time visitors.

First day free

Want to know more about how this works? We wrote a whole blog post explaining the new fairer billing system.

Minor improvements

Here are some other things we've improved this month:

• When you fetch threads, you now also get subscription info with them

• Added support for text mentions in room subscription settings

• New command to manually close the AI toolbar in Tiptap

• Webhook events now include a triggeredAt timestamp

• Email notifications won't show duplicate comments anymore

• Better event handling for the comment composer and emoji picker

• Inbox notifications for mentions now automatically link to the right room

• You can now choose where emoji data comes from (different CDN, self-hosted, etc.)

We also fixed a bunch of bugs:

• Occasional sync issues with Yjs and text editors

• App crashes when closing BlockNote

• BlockNote options not being passed through correctly

• Name capitalization in reaction tooltips

• Focus problems with AI toolbar in Safari

• Focus problems with floating toolbar in Safari

• Runtime errors in older browsers

• Storage corruption issues with mutations

• Dependency conflicts

• Thread rendering issues when editor view is null

Upgrade

Ready to try all this new stuff? Update your packages with:

npx create-liveblocks-app@latest --upgrade