StackShareStackShare
Follow on
StackShare

Discover and share technology stacks from companies around the world.

Follow on

© 2025 StackShare. All rights reserved.

Product

  • Stacks
  • Tools
  • Feed

Company

  • About
  • Contact

Legal

  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Service
  1. Stackups
  2. Application & Data
  3. Platform as a Service
  4. Realtime Backend API
  5. Google Cloud Pub/Sub vs SignalR

Google Cloud Pub/Sub vs SignalR

OverviewComparisonAlternatives

Overview

SignalR
SignalR
Stacks656
Followers1.2K
Votes146
GitHub Stars9.3K
Forks2.3K
Google Cloud Pub/Sub
Google Cloud Pub/Sub
Stacks550
Followers428
Votes13

Google Cloud Pub/Sub vs SignalR: What are the differences?

Key Differences between Google Cloud Pub/Sub and SignalR

Google Cloud Pub/Sub and SignalR are two popular communication technologies with distinct features and use cases. Here are the key differences between them:

  1. Scalability: Google Cloud Pub/Sub is designed to handle massive scale and can handle millions of messages per second with guaranteed delivery. It offers global message distribution and automatic scaling, making it suitable for large-scale distributed systems. On the other hand, SignalR is primarily used for real-time web applications and is more suitable for smaller-scale deployments where scalability is not the primary concern.

  2. Message Routing: Google Cloud Pub/Sub provides flexible routing options through topic-based subscriptions. It allows publishers to send messages to specific topics, and subscribers can receive messages from those topics. SignalR, on the other hand, uses a hub-based approach where clients subscribe to hubs and receive messages from those hubs. It offers a more direct and targeted approach to message routing.

  3. Communication Protocols: Google Cloud Pub/Sub is a cloud-based messaging service that supports various protocols like HTTP, gRPC, and Google Cloud client libraries. It provides a unified API for publishing and consuming messages across different platforms and programming languages. SignalR, on the other hand, is primarily designed for real-time communication over the web and uses various transport protocols like WebSockets, Server-Sent Events, and Long Polling.

  4. Integration with Cloud Services: Google Cloud Pub/Sub is tightly integrated with other Google Cloud services, such as Cloud Functions, Cloud Dataflow, and BigQuery. It allows seamless integration with these services to build complex event-driven architectures. SignalR, on the other hand, can be used with any web application or server platform and is not tied to any specific cloud provider.

  5. Client Libraries and SDKs: Google Cloud Pub/Sub provides client libraries and SDKs for various programming languages, including Java, Python, Node.js, and Go. These libraries offer easy integration with different development environments and provide a rich set of features for interacting with the Pub/Sub service. SignalR also offers client libraries for popular platforms like .NET, JavaScript, and Java, making it easier to build real-time web applications.

  6. Pricing Model: Google Cloud Pub/Sub follows a pay-as-you-go pricing model, where users are billed for the number of requests and the amount of data transferred. It offers a free tier with certain usage limits. SignalR, on the other hand, is available as a part of Microsoft Azure and is included in the pricing of the Azure services. The pricing for SignalR is based on the number of connections and the amount of data transferred.

In summary, Google Cloud Pub/Sub is a highly scalable and robust messaging service with global distribution and flexible routing options, while SignalR is a real-time communication framework primarily designed for web applications. The choice between them depends on the specific requirements and use cases of the application.

Share your Stack

Help developers discover the tools you use. Get visibility for your team's tech choices and contribute to the community's knowledge.

View Docs
CLI (Node.js)
or
Manual

Detailed Comparison

SignalR
SignalR
Google Cloud Pub/Sub
Google Cloud Pub/Sub

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.

Cloud Pub/Sub is a fully-managed real-time messaging service that allows you to send and receive messages between independent applications. You can leverage Cloud Pub/Sub’s flexibility to decouple systems and components hosted on Google Cloud Platform or elsewhere on the Internet.

Statistics
GitHub Stars
9.3K
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Forks
2.3K
GitHub Forks
-
Stacks
656
Stacks
550
Followers
1.2K
Followers
428
Votes
146
Votes
13
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 32
    Supports .NET server
  • 25
    Real-time
  • 18
    Free
  • 16
    Fallback to SSE, forever frame, long polling
  • 15
    WebSockets
Cons
  • 2
    Requires jQuery
  • 2
    Expertise hard to get
  • 1
    Big differences between ASP.NET and Core versions
  • 1
    Weak iOS and Android support
Pros
  • 9
    Easy to set-up and start with
  • 2
    Efficient and practical for complex systems
  • 2
    A great choice for microservice architecture
Cons
  • 2
    Need integration with stackdriver for monitoring
Integrations
.NET
.NET
Google Cloud Functions
Google Cloud Functions
Cloud Functions for Firebase
Cloud Functions for Firebase

What are some alternatives to SignalR, Google Cloud Pub/Sub?

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.

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.

Pusher

Pusher

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

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.

Related Comparisons

Bootstrap
Materialize

Bootstrap vs Materialize

Laravel
Django

Django vs Laravel vs Node.js

Bootstrap
Foundation

Bootstrap vs Foundation vs Material UI

Node.js
Spring Boot

Node.js vs Spring-Boot

Liquibase
Flyway

Flyway vs Liquibase