# Ably vs HiveMQ

**Leader by vioscaleAI score:** Ably

| Attribute | Ably | HiveMQ |
|---|---|---|
| **vioscaleAI score** | 75 (73% (medium)) | 55.2 (75% (high)) |
| content.faq | `[{"answer":"Ably is a platform providing APIs and SDKs for building real-time features including messaging and chat, with fully managed cloud infrastructure. It is indexed under Realtime Messaging Infra.","source":"https://ably.com","question":"What is Ably?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Ably offers a free tier, so you can start without paying. Paid plans start at $0.25. Prices are published openly on the vendor's own pricing page. Pricing changes often, so verify at source before relying on it.","source":"https://ably.com/pricing","question":"Is Ably free?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Ably supports the web, macOS, iOS, Android and a command-line interface. Platforms we have not confirmed are simply not listed here rather than ruled out.","source":"https://ably.com","question":"What platforms does Ably support?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have only confirmed a cloud / SaaS deployment for Ably, so it appears to be vendor-hosted. If a self-hosted option exists we have not found it documented publicly.","source":"https://ably.com","question":"Can Ably be self-hosted?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have confirmed 17 integrations for Ably, including AWS Lambda, Microsoft Azure Functions, Google Cloud Functions, Cloudflare Workers, AWS Kinesis, Kafka, RabbitMQ and AMQP, plus 9 more. This is what we could verify from public sources, so the vendor may support others we have not indexed.","source":"https://ably.com/pricing","question":"What does Ably integrate with?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have independently confirmed SOC 2, HIPAA and GDPR for Ably. Certifications we do not list are ones we have not been able to verify from public sources, which is not the same as Ably not holding them. Always confirm compliance directly before you rely on it.","source":"https://ably.com/security-and-compliance","question":"What security certifications does Ably have?","confidence":0.7},{"answer":"Ably is available in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia. Its primary markets are the United Kingdom and the United States. The vendor is headquartered in the United Kingdom.","source":"https://ably.com/pricing","question":"Where is Ably available?","confidence":0.75}]` | `[{"answer":"A fully-managed or self-hosted MQTT platform that streams industrial data in real time with guaranteed reliability and resilience, serving as the backbone for AI-driven operations and autonomous decision-making in manufacturing, logistics, and industrial settings. It is indexed under Realtime Messaging Infra.","source":"https://www.hivemq.com/pricing/","question":"What is HiveMQ?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"HiveMQ is a paid product; published pricing starts at $299 per month. It is sold across 3 plans (Launch, Run and Enterprise). There is no free tier. Pricing changes often, so verify at source before relying on it.","source":"https://www.hivemq.com/pricing/","question":"How much does HiveMQ cost?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"HiveMQ supports a command-line interface. Platforms we have not confirmed are simply not listed here rather than ruled out.","source":"https://www.hivemq.com/pricing/fully-managed/","question":"What platforms does HiveMQ support?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"Yes. HiveMQ can be deployed cloud / SaaS, hybrid, on-premise and self-hosted, so it does not have to run on the vendor's infrastructure.","source":"https://www.hivemq.com/pricing/fully-managed/","question":"Can HiveMQ be self-hosted?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have confirmed 5 integrations for HiveMQ, including Kafka, Amazon Kinesis, AWS CloudWatch, Prometheus and Graphite. This is what we could verify from public sources, so the vendor may support others we have not indexed.","source":"https://www.hivemq.com/pricing/fully-managed/","question":"What does HiveMQ integrate with?","confidence":0.6},{"answer":"We have independently confirmed SOC 2 and ISO 27001 for HiveMQ. Certifications we do not list are ones we have not been able to verify from public sources, which is not the same as HiveMQ not holding them. Always confirm compliance directly before you rely on it.","source":"https://www.hivemq.com/blog/achieving-real-time-accurate-billing-and-compliance-for-ai-era-data-centers/","question":"What security certifications does HiveMQ have?","confidence":0.7},{"answer":"HiveMQ is available worldwide. Its primary markets are the United States and the EU.","source":"https://www.hivemq.com/pricing/","question":"Where is HiveMQ available?","confidence":0.5}]` |
| deployment.options | `{"cloud":true}` | `{"cloud":true,"hybrid":true,"on_prem":true,"self_hosted":true}` |
| description.long | Ably is a platform providing APIs and SDKs for building real-time features including messaging and chat, with fully managed cloud infrastructure. | 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. |
| features.capabilities | `{"presence":true,"deployment":"cloud-hosted","pricing_model":"MAU-metered","global_edge_network":true}` | `{"auth_model":"mTLS","deployment":"hybrid","mqtt_support":true,"pricing_model":"connections-metered","self_hostable":true,"delivery_guarantee":"at-least-once","message_history_replay":true}` |
| integrations.count | 17 | 5 |
| integrations.list | `[{"name":"AWS Lambda"},{"name":"Microsoft Azure Functions"},{"name":"Google Cloud Functions"},{"name":"Cloudflare Workers"},{"name":"AWS Kinesis"},{"name":"Kafka"},{"name":"RabbitMQ"},{"name":"AMQP"},{"name":"AWS SQS"},{"name":"Pulsar"},{"name":"Zapier"},{"name":"IFTTT"},{"name":"Datadog"},{"name":"BigQuery"},{"name":"Terraform"},{"name":"Netlify"},{"name":"HTTP Webhooks"}]` | `[{"name":"Kafka"},{"name":"Amazon Kinesis"},{"name":"AWS CloudWatch"},{"name":"Prometheus"},{"name":"Graphite"},{"name":"Apache Kafka","native":true,"category":"messaging","direction":"bidirectional"},{"name":"Microsoft Azure","native":true,"category":"cloud","direction":"bidirectional"},{"name":"Kubernetes","native":true},{"name":"OpenShift","native":true}]` |
| market.availability | `{"primaryMarkets":[],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` | `{"primaryMarkets":["US","EU"],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` |
| platform.support | `{"cli":true,"ios":true,"mac":true,"web":true,"android":true,"windows":true}` | `{"cli":true}` |
| pricing | `{"type":"hybrid","plans":[{"free":true,"name":"Free","summary":"Free","features":["All Ably products included","Community and email support","No commitment"],"components":[{"kind":"fixed","amount":0,"period":"month","currency":"USD"}],"description":"Proof of concept development","contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{"message_size":"64KiB","message_storage":"1 day","concurrent_connections":"200"}},{"free":false,"name":"Standard","summary":"$29/month plus usage charges","features":["1 day email support SLA"],"components":[{"kind":"fixed","amount":29,"period":"month","currency":"USD"},{"per":{"qty":1000000,"unit":"messages"},"kind":"metered","amount":2.5,"currency":"USD"},{"per":{"qty":1000000,"unit":"channel_minutes"},"kind":"metered","amount":1,"currency":"USD"},{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"GiB"},"kind":"metered","amount":0.25,"currency":"USD"}],"description":"Production deployment","contactSales":false},{"free":false,"name":"Pro","summary":"$399/month plus usage charges","features":["4 hour email support SLA","Datadog lite monitoring"],"components":[{"kind":"fixed","amount":399,"period":"month","currency":"USD"},{"per":{"qty":1000000,"unit":"messages"},"kind":"metered","amount":2.5,"currency":"USD"},{"per":{"qty":1000000,"unit":"channel_minutes"},"kind":"metered","amount":1,"currency":"USD"},{"per":{"qty":1,"unit":"GiB"},"kind":"metered","amount":0.25,"currency":"USD"}],"description":"Business critical workloads","contactSales":false},{"free":false,"name":"Enterprise","summary":"Custom pricing","features":["24/7 mission critical support","99.999% uptime SLA","Committed use discounts","Datadog integration","SSO and SCIM","CNAME custom domain","Architectural guidance","Regional data routing","Dedicated cluster"],"contactSales":true}],"summary":"Free tier available. Paid plans start at $29/month with per-million message and channel minute billing.","currency":"USD","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://ably.com/pricing","retrievedAt":"2026-08-19T18:25:09.786Z","startingPrice":{"amount":29,"period":"month","currency":"USD"},"billingPeriods":["month"]}` | `{"type":"hybrid","plans":[{"free":true,"name":"Lab","summary":"Free, 100 msgs/sec, 1 broker","features":["TLS encryption","Authentication & authorization","Free MQTT connectivity"],"description":"Free tier for learning and experimentation","contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{"throughput":"100 msgs/sec","broker_deployments":"1"}},{"free":false,"name":"Production","summary":"$299/month","features":["TLS encryption","RBAC","99.95% Uptime SLA","Broker REST API"],"commitment":"monthly","components":[{"kind":"fixed","amount":299,"period":"month","currency":"USD"}],"description":"Self-managed production MQTT connectivity","contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{"throughput":"1,000 msgs/sec","data_volume":"10 GB/month"}},{"free":true,"name":"Cloud Serverless","summary":"Free managed cloud tier","features":["TLS encryption","Authentication","Authorization"],"description":"Free fully-managed cloud MQTT for learning and early experimentation","contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{}},{"free":false,"name":"Cloud Starter","summary":"Usage-based pricing","features":["TLS encryption","Authentication","Authorization","99.95% Uptime SLA","Broker REST API"],"commitment":"monthly","description":"Usage-based managed MQTT platform scaling with runtime and message volume","contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{}},{"free":false,"name":"Cloud Enterprise","summary":"Custom capacity-based pricing","features":["Full RBAC","Client certificate authentication","OAuth/JWT","Audit logging","Client event history","Broker REST API","Up to 99.99% Uptime SLA"],"description":"Fully-managed platform for business-critical systems requiring customization","contactSales":true,"includedLimits":{}},{"free":false,"name":"Self-Managed Enterprise","summary":"Custom capacity-based pricing","features":["On-premise deployment","Up to 99.99% Uptime SLA","Full RBAC","Client certificate authentication","OAuth/JWT","Audit logging","Client event history","Broker REST API"],"description":"Enterprise plan for complex, large-scale on-premise or hybrid deployments","contactSales":true,"includedLimits":{}}],"addOns":[{"name":"Overage messaging","components":[{"per":{"qty":1000000,"unit":"messages"},"kind":"metered","amount":0.8,"currency":"USD"}]}],"summary":"Free tiers available. Production from $299/month. Usage-based and capacity-based options for larger deployments.","currency":"USD","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://www.hivemq.com/pricing/","retrievedAt":"2026-09-28T13:45:33.382Z","startingPrice":{"amount":299,"period":"month","currency":"USD"},"billingPeriods":["month"]}` |
| pricing.free_tier | yes | yes |
| pricing.model | freemium | freemium |
| pricing.price_level | low | high |
| pricing.starting_price | `{"amount":29,"currency":"USD"}` | `{"amount":299,"currency":"USD"}` |
| pricing.transparent | yes | yes |
| reliability.sla_pct | 99.999 | 99.95 |
| reliability.status_page | yes | - |
| security.certifications | - | `[{"name":"SOC 2 Type II","level":"Type II","status":"active","auditor":"Insight Assurance LLC","evidenceUrl":"https://www.hivemq.com/news/hivemq-earns-soc-2-type-2-compliance/"},{"name":"ISO/IEC 27001:2013","status":"active"}]` |
| security.gdpr | yes | - |
| security.hipaa | yes | - |
| security.iso27001 | - | yes |
| security.soc2 | yes | yes |
| security.trust_center | - | https://www.hivemq.com/solutions/technology/hivemq-security/ |

## Capabilities (Realtime Messaging Infra)

| Capability | Ably | HiveMQ |
|---|:--:|:--:|
| **Capabilities** |  |  |
| Presence | ✓ | - |
| Message history replay | - | ✓ |
| Delivery guarantee | - | At least once |
| Global edge network | ✓ | - |
| Scaling model | - | - |
| Offline reconnect catchup | - | - |
| Push notification bridge | - | - |
| Auth model | - | MTLS |
| Self hostable | - | ✓ |
| Mqtt support | - | ✓ |
| Deployment | Cloud hosted | Hybrid |
| Pricing model | MAU metered | Connections metered |

*Source: vioscaleAI. Generated 2026-10-16T20:14:44.276Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*