Alternatives to Ably logo

Alternatives to Ably

Pusher, PubNub, Socket.IO, Firebase, and SignalR are the most popular alternatives and competitors to Ably.
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What is Ably and what are its top alternatives?

Ably offers WebSockets, stream resume, history, presence, and managed third-party integrations to make it simple to build, extend, and deliver digital realtime experiences at scale.
Ably is a tool in the Realtime Backend / API category of a tech stack.
Ably is an open source tool with 290 GitHub stars and 56 GitHub forks. Here’s a link to Ably's open source repository on GitHub

Top Alternatives to Ably

  • Pusher
    Pusher

    Pusher is the category leader in delightful APIs for app developers building communication and collaboration features. ...

  • PubNub
    PubNub

    PubNub makes it easy for you to add real-time capabilities to your apps, without worrying about the infrastructure. Build apps that allow your users to engage in real-time across mobile, browser, desktop and server. ...

  • Socket.IO
    Socket.IO

    It enables real-time bidirectional event-based communication. It works on every platform, browser or device, focusing equally on reliability and speed. ...

  • Firebase
    Firebase

    Firebase is a cloud service designed to power real-time, collaborative applications. Simply add the Firebase library to your application to gain access to a shared data structure; any changes you make to that data are automatically synchronized with the Firebase cloud and with other clients within milliseconds. ...

  • SignalR
    SignalR

    SignalR allows bi-directional communication between server and client. Servers can now push content to connected clients instantly as it becomes available. SignalR supports Web Sockets, and falls back to other compatible techniques for older browsers. SignalR includes APIs for connection management (for instance, connect and disconnect events), grouping connections, and authorization. ...

  • SocketCluster
    SocketCluster

    SocketCluster is a fast, highly scalable HTTP + realtime server engine which lets you build multi-process realtime servers that make use of all CPU cores on a machine/instance. It removes the limitations of having to run your Node.js server as a single thread and makes your backend resilient by automatically recovering from worker crashes and aggregating errors into a central log. ...

  • aptly
    aptly

    aptly is a swiss army knife for Debian repository management: it allows you to mirror remote repositories, manage local package repositories, take snapshots, pull new versions of packages along with dependencies, publish as Debian repository. ...

  • Able
    Able

    It is a bootstrapped community for people to read and write about software engineering. It is an alternative to Medium. ...

Ably alternatives & related posts

Pusher logo

Pusher

602
1.4K
234
Hosted APIs to build realtime apps with less code
602
1.4K
+ 1
234
PROS OF PUSHER
  • 55
    An easy way to give customers realtime features
  • 40
    Websockets
  • 34
    Simple
  • 27
    Easy to get started with
  • 25
    Free plan
  • 12
    Heroku Add-on
  • 11
    Easy and fast to configure and to understand
  • 9
    JSON
  • 6
    Happy
  • 6
    Azure Add-on
  • 5
    Support
  • 4
    Push notification
CONS OF PUSHER
  • 10
    Costly

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Kirill Shirinkin
Cloud and DevOps Consultant at mkdev · | 3 upvotes · 469.9K views
Shared insights
on
MattermostMattermostPusherPusherTwilioTwilio
at

Recently we finished long research on chat tool for our students and mentors. In the end we picked Mattermost Team Edition as the cheapest and most feature complete option. We did consider building everything from scratch and use something like Pusher or Twilio on a backend, but then we would have to implement all the desktop and mobile clients and all the features oursevles. Mattermost gave us flexible API, lots of built in or easy to install integrations and future-proof feature set. We are still integrating it with our main platform but so far the team, existing mentors and students are very happy.

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PubNub logo

PubNub

232
457
238
Build real-time apps quickly and scale them globally.
232
457
+ 1
238
PROS OF PUBNUB
  • 36
    Massively scalable & easy to use
  • 25
    Easy setup
  • 20
    Reliable
  • 19
    Great support
  • 14
    Flexible to integrate to custom applications
  • 13
    Sockets at Scale
  • 13
    99.999% availability guarantees
  • 13
    High-Performance
  • 12
    High-Reliability
  • 12
    Multiplexing
  • 7
    Scalability
  • 5
    High-Availability
  • 5
    70+ SDKs
  • 4
    Security
  • 4
    Azure Add-on
  • 3
    Heroku Add-on
  • 3
    Presence
  • 3
    Flexible
  • 3
    Easy to setup
  • 2
    Data Streams
  • 2
    Free Plan
  • 2
    Server-Side Cache
  • 2
    PhoneGap Plugin
  • 2
    AngularJS Adapter
  • 2
    Data Sync
  • 2
    Analytics
  • 2
    Support
  • 1
    Easy setup and very reliable
  • 1
    High cost, going up more in Summer '15
  • 1
    Cool
  • 1
    Angular 2+ integration
  • 1
    Documentation, easy to use, great people/service
  • 1
    CTO stephen also is A++++++
  • 1
    Real time and easy to use.
  • 1
    Easy integration with iOS apps
CONS OF PUBNUB
  • 1
    Costly

related PubNub posts

Which messaging service (Pusher vs. PubNub vs. Google Cloud Pub/Sub) to use for IoT?

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Shared insights
on
PubNubPubNubSocket.IOSocket.IO

I am trying to replace Socket.IO with PubNub. Provide the way to do it.

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Socket.IO logo

Socket.IO

12.9K
10.6K
784
Realtime application framework (Node.JS server)
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10.6K
+ 1
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PROS OF SOCKET.IO
  • 219
    Real-time
  • 142
    Node.js
  • 141
    Event-based communication
  • 102
    Open source
  • 102
    WebSockets
  • 26
    Binary streaming
  • 21
    No internet dependency
  • 10
    Large community
  • 9
    Fallback to polling if WebSockets not supported
  • 6
    Push notification
  • 5
    Ease of access and setup
  • 1
    Test
CONS OF SOCKET.IO
  • 12
    Bad documentation
  • 4
    Githubs that complement it are mostly deprecated
  • 3
    Doesn't work on React Native
  • 2
    Small community
  • 2
    Websocket Errors

related Socket.IO posts

across_the_grid
Full-stack web developer · | 10 upvotes · 419.7K views
Shared insights
on
Socket.IOSocket.IONode.jsNode.jsExpressJSExpressJS

I use Socket.IO because the application has 2 frontend clients, which need to communicate in real-time. The backend-server handles the communication between these two clients via websockets. Socket.io is very easy to set up in Node.js and ExpressJS.

In the research project, the 1st client shows panoramic videos in a so called cave system (it is the VR setup of our research lab, which consists of three big screens, which are specially arranged, so the user experience the videos more immersive), the 2nd client controls the videos/locations of the 1st client.

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We are starting to work on a web-based platform aiming to connect artists (clients) and professional freelancers (service providers). In-app, timeline-based, real-time communication between users (& storing it), file transfers, and push notifications are essential core features. We are considering using Node.js, ExpressJS, React, MongoDB stack with Socket.IO & Apollo, or maybe using Real-Time Database and functionalities of Firebase.

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Firebase logo

Firebase

39.9K
34.3K
2K
The Realtime App Platform
39.9K
34.3K
+ 1
2K
PROS OF FIREBASE
  • 371
    Realtime backend made easy
  • 270
    Fast and responsive
  • 242
    Easy setup
  • 215
    Real-time
  • 191
    JSON
  • 134
    Free
  • 128
    Backed by google
  • 83
    Angular adaptor
  • 68
    Reliable
  • 36
    Great customer support
  • 32
    Great documentation
  • 25
    Real-time synchronization
  • 21
    Mobile friendly
  • 18
    Rapid prototyping
  • 14
    Great security
  • 12
    Automatic scaling
  • 11
    Freakingly awesome
  • 8
    Super fast development
  • 8
    Angularfire is an amazing addition!
  • 8
    Chat
  • 6
    Built in user auth/oauth
  • 6
    Ios adaptor
  • 6
    Awesome next-gen backend
  • 6
    Firebase hosting
  • 4
    Speed of light
  • 4
    Very easy to use
  • 3
    Great
  • 3
    It's made development super fast
  • 3
    Brilliant for startups
  • 2
    The concurrent updates create a great experience
  • 2
    Push notification
  • 2
    .net
  • 2
    Cloud functions
  • 2
    Free hosting
  • 2
    Free authentication solution
  • 2
    JS Offline and Sync suport
  • 2
    Low battery consumption
  • 2
    I can quickly create static web apps with no backend
  • 2
    Great all-round functionality
  • 1
    Large
  • 1
    Easy to use
  • 1
    Free SSL
  • 1
    Faster workflow
  • 1
    Google's support
  • 1
    CDN & cache out of the box
  • 1
    Easy Reactjs integration
  • 1
    Simple and easy
  • 1
    Good Free Limits
  • 1
    Serverless
CONS OF FIREBASE
  • 31
    Can become expensive
  • 16
    No open source, you depend on external company
  • 15
    Scalability is not infinite
  • 9
    Not Flexible Enough
  • 7
    Cant filter queries
  • 3
    Very unstable server
  • 3
    No Relational Data
  • 2
    Too many errors
  • 2
    No offline sync

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Stephen Gheysens
Lead Solutions Engineer at Inscribe · | 14 upvotes · 1.8M views

Hi Otensia! I'd definitely recommend using the skills you've already got and building with JavaScript is a smart way to go these days. Most platform services have JavaScript/Node SDKs or NPM packages, many serverless platforms support Node in case you need to write any backend logic, and JavaScript is incredibly popular - meaning it will be easy to hire for, should you ever need to.

My advice would be "don't reinvent the wheel". If you already have a skill set that will work well to solve the problem at hand, and you don't need it for any other projects, don't spend the time jumping into a new language. If you're looking for an excuse to learn something new, it would be better to invest that time in learning a new platform/tool that compliments your knowledge of JavaScript. For this project, I might recommend using Netlify, Vercel, or Google Firebase to quickly and easily deploy your web app. If you need to add user authentication, there are great examples out there for Firebase Authentication, Auth0, or even Magic (a newcomer on the Auth scene, but very user friendly). All of these services work very well with a JavaScript-based application.

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Tassanai Singprom

This is my stack in Application & Data

JavaScript PHP HTML5 jQuery Redis Amazon EC2 Ubuntu Sass Vue.js Firebase Laravel Lumen Amazon RDS GraphQL MariaDB

My Utilities Tools

Google Analytics Postman Elasticsearch

My Devops Tools

Git GitHub GitLab npm Visual Studio Code Kibana Sentry BrowserStack

My Business Tools

Slack

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SignalR logo

SignalR

485
1.2K
146
A new library for ASP.NET developers that makes developing real-time web functionality easy.
485
1.2K
+ 1
146
PROS OF SIGNALR
  • 32
    Supports .NET server
  • 25
    Real-time
  • 18
    Free
  • 16
    Fallback to SSE, forever frame, long polling
  • 15
    WebSockets
  • 10
    Simple
  • 9
    Open source
  • 8
    Ease of use
  • 8
    JSON
  • 5
    Cool
  • 0
    Azure
CONS OF SIGNALR
  • 2
    Expertise hard to get
  • 2
    Requires jQuery
  • 1
    Weak iOS and Android support
  • 1
    Big differences between ASP.NET and Core versions

related SignalR posts

Shared insights
on
gRPCgRPCSignalRSignalR.NET.NET

We need to interact from several different Web applications (remote) to a client-side application (.exe in .NET Framework, Windows.Console under our controlled environment). From the web applications, we need to send and receive data and invoke methods to client-side .exe on javascript events like users onclick. SignalR is one of the .Net alternatives to do that, but it adds overhead for what we need. Is it better to add SignalR at both client-side application and remote web application, or use gRPC as it sounds lightest and is multilingual?

SignalR or gRPC are always sending and receiving data on the client-side (from browser to .exe and back to browser). And web application is used for graphical visualization of data to the user. There is no need for local .exe to send or interact with remote web API. Which architecture or framework do you suggest to use in this case?

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SocketCluster logo

SocketCluster

47
166
47
An open, scalable realtime engine for Node.js
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166
+ 1
47
PROS OF SOCKETCLUSTER
  • 12
    Cluster mode is awesome
  • 8
    WebSockets
  • 7
    Scalability
  • 4
    Security
  • 4
    Real-time
  • 4
    JWT based Authentication
  • 3
    Pub-Sub API
  • 3
    Open source
  • 2
    Client Libraries
CONS OF SOCKETCLUSTER
    Be the first to leave a con

    related SocketCluster posts

    aptly logo

    aptly

    19
    23
    0
    Swiss army knife for Debian repository management
    19
    23
    + 1
    0
    PROS OF APTLY
      Be the first to leave a pro
      CONS OF APTLY
        Be the first to leave a con

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        Able logo

        Able

        0
        4
        0
        A software engineering community for people to read, write and find jobs
        0
        4
        + 1
        0
        PROS OF ABLE
          Be the first to leave a pro
          CONS OF ABLE
            Be the first to leave a con

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