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General Information

WebSocket API

The Paradex WebSocket API provides real-time market data and account updates. WebSockets allow for a persistent connection between the client and server, enabling efficient two-way communication.

SBE required for public channels as of 21 September 2026

As of 21 September 2026, Paradex requires Simple Binary Encoding (SBE) for public channel payloads. See Binary Encoding (SBE) for details on how to enable it.

Server URLs

EnvironmentWebSocket URL
Testnet (Sepolia)wss://ws.api.testnet.paradex.trade/v1
Mainnetwss://ws.api.prod.paradex.trade/v1

Public vs Private Channels

The Paradex WebSocket API provides two types of channels:

  • Public Channels: Publish information about the exchange that is not specific to a particular account. Examples include market summary, order book, trades, etc. You do not need to authenticate to subscribe to public channels.

  • Private Channels: Publish information about a particular account. You need to authenticate to subscribe to private channels.

Establishing a Connection

To establish a WebSocket connection, you can use various programming languages and libraries. When running Python-based code, Python 3.10+ is recommended.

Example in Python

import asyncio
from paradex_py.api.ws_client import ParadexWebsocketClient
from paradex_py.environment import TESTNET
async def main():
    # sbe_enabled selects binary encoding for public channel payloads.
    ws_client = ParadexWebsocketClient(env=TESTNET, sbe_enabled=True)
    await ws_client.connect()
    print("Connected")
asyncio.run(main())

Upon successful connection, you should see:

Connected

Maintaining a Connection

Paradex has implemented ping/pong functionality as part of the WebSocket specification. This works at the protocol level:

  • The server sends a ping message every 55 seconds
  • The client must respond with a pong within 5 seconds
  • Upon receiving the pong, the connection is renewed for 60 seconds
  • If the server doesn’t receive a pong within the 5-second window, the connection is terminated

Most modern WebSocket libraries and frameworks automatically handle ping/pong messages. If you’re using older libraries or building a WebSocket client from scratch, you may need to implement this functionality manually.

To display incoming ping messages, you can use the following wscat command:

wscat -P -w 120 -c wss://ws.api.testnet.paradex.trade/v1 -x '{"id":1,"jsonrpc":"2.0","method":"subscribe","params":{"channel":"markets_summary"}}' | grep "ping"

Next Steps