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  1. Stackups
  2. Application & Data
  3. Platform as a Service
  4. Realtime Backend API
  5. PubNub vs Radar

PubNub vs Radar

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

PubNub
PubNub
Stacks249
Followers458
Votes238
Radar
Radar
Stacks3
Followers17
Votes0
GitHub Stars220
Forks43

PubNub vs Radar: What are the differences?

PubNub: Build real-time apps quickly and scale them globally. 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; Radar: High level API and backend for writing web apps that use push messaging. Radar is built on top of engine.io, the next-generation backend for socket.io. It uses Redis for backend storage, though the assumption is that this is only for storing currently active data.

PubNub and Radar belong to "Realtime Backend / API" category of the tech stack.

Some of the features offered by PubNub are:

  • PubNub SDKs support over 50 of the most popular environments, including: iOS, Android, JavaScript, .NET, Java, Ruby, Python, PHP and many more.
  • Data Push - Establish and maintain persistent socket connections to any device (mobile, browser, desktop and server) and push data to global audiences in less than ¼ of a second
  • Presence - Automatically detect when users enter or leave your app and whether machines are online

On the other hand, Radar provides the following key features:

  • More than just pub/sub: a resource-based API for presence, messaging and push notifications via a Javascript client library
  • Written in Javascript/Node.js, and uses engine.io (the new, low-level complement to socket.io)
  • Backend to multiple front-facing servers

Radar is an open source tool with 209 GitHub stars and 35 GitHub forks. Here's a link to Radar's open source repository on GitHub.

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Advice on PubNub, Radar

tauschjl
tauschjl

Apr 22, 2021

Needs advice

I am building an IoT application that will utilize connected air quality sensors to provide real-time indoor air quality in offices. I want to be able to share this data with a few different databases, etc.

Wondering if anyone has any advice on which real-time streaming API would be best for this sort of application, or even how I should think about it?

38.1k views38.1k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

PubNub
PubNub
Radar
Radar

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.

Radar is built on top of engine.io, the next-generation backend for socket.io. It uses Redis for backend storage, though the assumption is that this is only for storing currently active data.

PubNub SDKs support over 50 of the most popular environments, including: iOS, Android, JavaScript, .NET, Java, Ruby, Python, PHP and many more.;Data Push - Establish and maintain persistent socket connections to any device (mobile, browser, desktop and server) and push data to global audiences in less than ¼ of a second;Presence - Automatically detect when users enter or leave your app and whether machines are online;Storage and Playback- Store your real-time data streams for future access, “playback” or re-publish;Mobile - Easily manage the complexity of real-time apps on mobile devices;Analytics - Simulate an audience of millions. See a live view of audience size, engagement and geography;Security - Protect your real-time data with easy to use enterprise-grade security
More than just pub/sub: a resource-based API for presence, messaging and push notifications via a Javascript client library;Written in Javascript/Node.js, and uses engine.io (the new, low-level complement to socket.io);Backend to multiple front-facing servers;REST API for working with web apps that don't use Node (presently, rework in progress)
Statistics
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Stars
220
GitHub Forks
-
GitHub Forks
43
Stacks
249
Stacks
3
Followers
458
Followers
17
Votes
238
Votes
0
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 36
    Massively scalable & easy to use
  • 25
    Easy setup
  • 20
    Reliable
  • 19
    Great support
  • 14
    Flexible to integrate to custom applications
Cons
  • 1
    Costly
No community feedback yet

What are some alternatives to PubNub, Radar?

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.

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.

Pusher

Pusher

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

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.

Ably

Ably

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.

Syncano

Syncano

Syncano is a backend platform to build powerful real-time apps more efficiently. Integrate with any API, minimize boilerplate code and control your data - all from one place.

NATS

NATS

Unlike traditional enterprise messaging systems, NATS has an always-on dial tone that does whatever it takes to remain available. This forms a great base for building modern, reliable, and scalable cloud and distributed systems.

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.

deepstream.io

deepstream.io

Scalable Server for Realtime Web Apps with JSON structures that can be read, manipulated and listened to, messages that can be sent to one or more subscribers, and request response workflows, between two clients or servers.

8base

8base

A cloud service designed to power enterprise-grade web and mobile applications that require support for large numbers of users, complex data and transactional requirements, comprehensive role-based security and a modern look-and-feel.

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