# Ably vs PubNub

| Attribute | Ably | PubNub |
|---|---|---|
| **Vioscale score** | 73.7 (61% (medium)) | 74.5 (51% (medium)) |
| deployment.options | `{"cloud":true}` | `{"cloud":true}` |
| description.long | A distributed messaging platform for building interactive features like chat, notifications, and collaboration. Provides fault-tolerant message delivery with guaranteed ordering, automatic network recovery, and multi-region redundancy. | PubNub provides APIs and SDKs for building real-time interactive application features. It manages cloud infrastructure for messaging, presence tracking, and push notifications while handling compliance, security, and global scaling requirements. |
| integrations.count | 17 | - |
| 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"}]` | - |
| market.availability | `{"hqCountry":"GB","primaryMarkets":["GB","US"],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":["GB","US","AU"],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` | `{"primaryMarkets":[],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` |
| platform.support | `{"cli":true,"ios":true,"mac":true,"web":true,"linux":true,"android":true,"windows":true}` | `{"ios":true,"web":true,"android":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":"Free","summary":"Free forever for development","features":["Up to 200 Monthly Active Users","1 million function calls per month","1GB data storage (7 days retention)","1 million push notifications per month","No credit card required"],"commitment":"monthly","components":[{"kind":"fixed","amount":0,"period":"month","currency":"USD"}],"description":"For development and testing purposes","contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{"mau":"200","data_storage_gb_days":"1GB (7 days)","function_calls_per_month":"1M","push_notifications_per_month":"1M"}},{"free":false,"name":"Starter","summary":"$98/month including 1,000 MAU","features":["1,000 Monthly Active Users included","99.999% uptime SLA","SAML SSO","HIPAA compliance with BAA","Bizops Workspace for user and channel management","Advanced analytics and monitoring","Custom integrations","Standard support"],"commitment":"monthly","components":[{"kind":"fixed","amount":98,"period":"month","currency":"USD"}],"description":"Production-ready with user and channel management","contactSales":false,"includedLimits":{"mau":"1000"}},{"free":false,"name":"Pro","summary":"Tier 1 (up to 10K MAU): $370–$550/month. Tier 2 (10K–50K): from $750/month. Tier 3 (50K+): custom pricing with volume discounts. Annual billing available.","features":["Usage-based pricing: Tier 1 (up to 10K MAU), Tier 2 (10K-50K MAU), Tier 3 (50K+ MAU)","Enterprise features included","99.999% uptime SLA","SAML SSO","HIPAA compliance","Mobile Push Notifications","Access Manager with fine-grained access control","Functions for programmable infrastructure","Event Management for third-party integrations","Real-time analytics and automated decisioning","Content moderation and fraud detection capabilities","Unlimited chat storage","Premium support options"],"description":"Enterprise-scale with tiered usage-based pricing on Monthly Active Users","contactSales":true}],"addOns":[{"name":"Illuminate"}],"summary":"Free tier for development (200 MAU). Starter at $98/month (1,000 MAU). Pro uses tiered monthly active user pricing from $370/month with annual discounts available.","currency":"USD","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://www.pubnub.com/pricing/","retrievedAt":"2026-08-19T18:27:51.026Z","startingPrice":{"amount":98,"period":"month","currency":"USD"},"billingPeriods":["month","year"]}` |
| pricing.free_tier | yes | yes |
| pricing.model | freemium | freemium |
| pricing.price_level | mid | high |
| pricing.starting_price | `{"amount":29,"currency":"USD"}` | `{"amount":98,"currency":"USD"}` |
| pricing.transparent | yes | yes |
| reliability.sla_pct | 99.999 | 99.999 |
| reliability.status_page | yes | yes |
| security.gdpr | yes | yes |
| security.hipaa | yes | yes |
| security.soc2 | yes | yes |

## Capabilities (Realtime Messaging Infra)

| Capability | Ably | PubNub |
|---|:--:|:--:|
| **Capabilities** |  |  |
| Presence | - | - |
| Message history replay | - | - |
| Delivery guarantee | - | - |
| Global edge network | - | - |
| Scaling model | - | - |
| Offline reconnect catchup | - | - |
| Push notification bridge | - | - |
| Auth model | - | - |
| Self hostable | - | - |
| Mqtt support | - | - |
| Deployment | - | - |
| Pricing model | - | - |

*Source: Vioscale. Generated 2026-09-01T14:30:13.355Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*