Ably vs Pusher vs PubNub: pricing, protocols and when each fits
Three hosted realtime services side by side: Pusher prices connections and daily messages, Ably and PubNub price monthly active users. What the same app costs on each.
Ably, Pusher and PubNub are the three hosted realtime services people compare most. All three run the servers for you; they differ in protocol, in what they count when they bill, and in what they offer beyond publish and subscribe. Ably now prices by the same unit as PubNub, monthly active users, while Pusher prices by connections and daily messages.
The three side by side
| Pusher Channels | Ably | PubNub | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Protocol and SDKs | Pusher protocol, many open-source libraries | Ably protocol and SDKs; a Pusher adapter is available | PubNub SDKs |
| What you pay for | Plan tier: peak connections and messages a day | Monthly active users (MAU) | Monthly active users (MAU) |
| Free plan | 100 connections, 200,000 messages a day | 500 MAU, 6 million messages a month, 500 connections | 200 MAU |
| Entry paid plan | Startup, $49/month: 500 connections, 1 million messages a day | Pro, $29/month for 1,000 MAU on annual billing ($35 monthly); extra MAU $0.05 each | Starter, $98/month for 1,000 MAU |
| What counts as a message | The publish and every delivery | The publish and every delivery count toward the monthly message limit | Billing follows MAU, not messages |
| Over the limit | Traffic that stays above a plan needs the next plan | Not blocked; extra MAU billed | Extra MAU billed in proportion |
| Beyond publish and subscribe | Presence, webhooks; push is a separate product (Beams) | Message history, global edge network, push | Storage, serverless functions, push |
Figures are from pusher.com/channels/pricing, ably.com/pricing, Ably's pricing docs and limits, and pubnub.com/pricing, checked on 2026-11-09.
Connections or monthly users
Pusher charges for the busiest moment: how many people are connected at once and how many messages go out in a day. Ably and PubNub charge for everyone who shows up in a month, however briefly. A live score page with 50,000 visitors a month but 800 online at once is cheap on a connection plan and expensive on MAU. A team tool with 300 people who keep it open all day is the other way round: few monthly users, lots of messages.
The same app on each
5,000 people use the app in a month, up to 1,000 are online at once, and 50,000 events a day each reach about 20 subscribers.
- Pusher: 50,000 × 21 = 1.05 million messages a day and 1,000 connections, past Startup on both counts, so Pro at $99/month.
- Ably: 5,000 MAU is $129/month on Pro with annual billing, $155 monthly. The 31.5 million messages a month are well inside the limit.
- PubNub: 5,000 MAU is above Starter; PubNub's own example prices it at about $370/month.
If the same traffic came from 1,000 regular users, Ably Pro would be $29 and PubNub Starter $98, while Pusher stays at $99 because it prices messages, not people.
Which to pick
- Pusher: your code already uses pusher-js, Laravel Echo or a Pusher server library, and your traffic is steady enough to sit inside a tier.
- Ably: you need servers on several continents, message history or delivery guarantees, and your monthly audience is small next to how much each user sends.
- PubNub: you want storage and serverless functions from the same vendor, with a small, stable user count.
If you like the Pusher protocol but not its message counting, a Pusher-compatible service keeps your code: Hibira counts each publish once and, on paid plans, does not count broadcast deliveries. The Pusher alternatives page covers the self-hosted options too.
Common questions
Is Ably cheaper than Pusher?
It depends on how many people you have, not how much they send. Ably Pro starts at $29 a month for 1,000 monthly users, so a small, busy audience costs less than on Pusher. A large audience that visits briefly costs more, because every visitor counts as a monthly active user.
Is PubNub cheaper than Ably?
At 1,000 monthly users PubNub Starter is $98 a month and Ably Pro $29 with annual billing. At 5,000 monthly users PubNub's own example comes to about $370 a month, Ably Pro to $129. Both bill extra users above the allowance rather than blocking them.
Can I move from Pusher to Ably or PubNub without changing code?
Not to PubNub: it uses its own SDKs, so client and server code change. Ably offers an adapter for Pusher-protocol clients, but its own SDKs are the main path. A Pusher-compatible service needs only a new host, key and secret; the migration guide shows each step.
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