What is the best alternative to Ably?

Pusher is the top-rated alternative to Ably. It offers Simple to integrate and Battle-tested reliability, and is freemium starting at $49/month/month.

Is there a free alternative to Ably?

Yes — Pusher is a freemium alternative to Ably. Simple to integrate

Why do developers switch from Ably?

Common reasons to switch from Ably: More complex than Pusher; Pricing can be hard to predict; Docs could be clearer.

Best Ably Alternatives(2026)

We compared 4 alternatives to Ably — so you can find the best option for your needs and budget.

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You're replacing

Ably

freemium

Realtime pub/sub messaging at scale

Starts at $0 (free 6M messages/month)

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Common reasons to switch

More complex than PusherPricing can be hard to predictDocs could be clearer

Pusher

freemium

From $49/month

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Pusher provides hosted realtime APIs (WebSockets) for adding live features to web and mobile apps.

Pros

+Simple to integrate

+Battle-tested reliability

+Multiple language SDKs

Cons

−Expensive for high connection counts

−No self-hosted option

−Limited message history

WebSocket channelsPresence channelsPrivate channelsWebhooksClient libraries

Soketi

open-source

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Soketi is an open source, Pusher protocol-compatible WebSocket server you can self-host for free.

Pros

+Free self-hosted

+Pusher drop-in replacement

+Low latency

Cons

−Self-hosting overhead

−No hosted cloud option

−Smaller community

Pusher-compatible protocolSelf-hostedHorizontal scalingRedis adapterHTTP API

Firebase

freemium

From $25/month

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Firebase is Google's app development platform with realtime database, Firestore, auth, hosting, and cloud functions.

Pros

+Real-time sync out of the box

+Complete backend platform

+Excellent mobile SDKs

Cons

−Vendor lock-in

−Expensive at scale

−NoSQL limitations

Firestore (NoSQL)Realtime DatabaseAuthenticationCloud FunctionsHosting

Supabase

freemium

From $25/month

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Supabase is an open source Firebase alternative providing a Postgres database, Auth, realtime, storage, and edge functions.

Pros

+Full Postgres with SQL

+Built-in auth and storage

+Open source

Cons

−Free tier pauses after 1 week inactive

−Self-hosting is complex

−Edge functions limited

PostgreSQLAuthenticationRealtimeStorageEdge Functions

Compare Ably Head to Head

Ably vs Pusher Ably vs Soketi Ably vs Firebase Ably vs Supabase