Ably vs HiveMQ
On the evidence we track, Ably leads this comparison with a composite score of 75/100. Scores are only directly comparable because these tools share a category; the full breakdown and every source is below.
Capabilities
Feature-by-feature on the axes that matter for realtime messaging infra. “-” means undocumented, not absent.
What each one is
The product in its own terms, so the numbers below have context.
Ably
LeaderAbly is a platform providing APIs and SDKs for building real-time features including messaging and chat, with fully managed cloud infrastructure.
HiveMQ
HiveMQ is a messaging platform purpose-built around MQTT to transport data from industrial equipment and IoT devices to business applications across hybrid environments. It supports managed cloud, self-hosted, and on-premise deployments with strong security, scalability, and governance features for mission-critical operations.
Pricing
List pricing as published by each vendor, with the date we read it. Always verify at the source before you buy.
Ably
LeaderFree tier available. Paid plans start at $29/month with per-million message and channel minute billing.
- FreeFree
- All Ably products included
- Community and email support
- No commitment
- Standard$29/month plus usage charges
- 1 day email support SLA
- Pro$399/month plus usage charges
- 4 hour email support SLA
- Datadog lite monitoring
- EnterpriseContact sales
- 24/7 mission critical support
- 99.999% uptime SLA
- Committed use discounts
- Datadog integration
- SSO and SCIM
- +4 more
HiveMQ
Free tiers available. Production from $299/month. Usage-based and capacity-based options for larger deployments.
- LabFree
- TLS encryption
- Authentication & authorization
- Free MQTT connectivity
- Production$299/month
- TLS encryption
- RBAC
- 99.95% Uptime SLA
- Broker REST API
- Cloud ServerlessFree
- TLS encryption
- Authentication
- Authorization
- Cloud StarterUsage-based pricing
- TLS encryption
- Authentication
- Authorization
- 99.95% Uptime SLA
- Broker REST API
- Cloud EnterpriseContact sales
- Full RBAC
- Client certificate authentication
- OAuth/JWT
- Audit logging
- Client event history
- +2 more
- Self-Managed EnterpriseContact sales
- On-premise deployment
- Up to 99.99% Uptime SLA
- Full RBAC
- Client certificate authentication
- OAuth/JWT
- +3 more
Platform & deployment
Where each product runs and how it can be hosted. A dash means undocumented, not unsupported.
Integrations
What each product connects to. Counts come from the vendor's own integration directory where one exists.
- Kafka
Ably
Leader- AWS Lambda
- Microsoft Azure Functions
- Google Cloud Functions
- Cloudflare Workers
- AWS Kinesis
- RabbitMQ
- AMQP
- AWS SQS
- Pulsar
- Zapier
- IFTTT
- Datadog
- BigQuery
- Terraform
- Netlify
- HTTP Webhooks
HiveMQ
- Amazon Kinesis
- AWS CloudWatch
- Prometheus
- Graphite
- Apache Kafka
- Microsoft Azure
- Kubernetes
- OpenShift
Ably or HiveMQ: which one depends on you
A composite score cannot know your constraints. Describe them and both get re-weighted against what you actually need, with the evidence behind every position.
Free to run, no account needed to start. How the evaluation works
Comparison generated from independently-sourced facts. Every value links to its source and retrieval date. See the method.