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. PlayFab vs SocketCluster

PlayFab vs SocketCluster

OverviewComparisonAlternatives

Overview

SocketCluster
SocketCluster
Stacks47
Followers168
Votes47
GitHub Stars6.2K
Forks322
PlayFab
PlayFab
Stacks37
Followers88
Votes0

PlayFab vs SocketCluster: What are the differences?

Developers describe PlayFab as "Launch smoothly, grow fearlessly". PlayFab unlocks a new world of creativity for game developers by providing a cross-platform "backend-as-a-service" built exclusively for games. We give game developers the tools, technologies, and know-how they need to have a trouble-free launch day, and profitable day-to-day operations after that. On the other hand, SocketCluster is detailed as "An open, scalable realtime engine for Node.js". 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.

PlayFab belongs to "Game Development" category of the tech stack, while SocketCluster can be primarily classified under "Realtime Backend / API".

Some of the features offered by PlayFab are:

  • Game Services
  • LiveOps
  • Analytics

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

  • Resilient on both the client and backend - Process crashes, lost connections and other failures are handled seamlessly.
  • Scales linearly as you add more CPU cores and workers (assuming a decent OS) - Tested with up to 16 cores.
  • Also designed to scale horizontally across multiple machines. See sc-redis sample.

SocketCluster is an open source tool with 5.38K GitHub stars and 289 GitHub forks. Here's a link to SocketCluster's open source repository on GitHub.

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

SocketCluster
SocketCluster
PlayFab
PlayFab

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.

It unlocks a new world of creativity for game developers by providing a cross-platform "backend-as-a-service" built exclusively for games. We give game developers the tools, technologies, and know-how they need to have a trouble-free launch day, and profitable day-to-day operations after that.

Resilient on both the client and backend - Process crashes, lost connections and other failures are handled seamlessly.;Scales linearly as you add more CPU cores and workers (assuming a decent OS) - Tested with up to 16 cores.;Also designed to scale horizontally across multiple machines. See sc-redis sample.
Game Services; LiveOps; Analytics
Statistics
GitHub Stars
6.2K
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Forks
322
GitHub Forks
-
Stacks
47
Stacks
37
Followers
168
Followers
88
Votes
47
Votes
0
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 12
    Cluster mode is awesome
  • 8
    WebSockets
  • 7
    Scalability
  • 4
    Security
  • 4
    JWT based Authentication
No community feedback yet
Integrations
Node.js
Node.js
Android Studio
Android Studio
Java
Java
Unity
Unity
HTML5
HTML5
Unreal Engine
Unreal Engine
Cocoa Touch (iOS)
Cocoa Touch (iOS)

What are some alternatives to SocketCluster, PlayFab?

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.

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.

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