# EMQX vs PubNub

**Leader by Vioscale score:** PubNub

| Attribute | EMQX | PubNub |
|---|---|---|
| **Vioscale score** | 53.8 (61% (medium)) | 74.5 (51% (medium)) |
| deployment.options | `{"cloud":true,"on_prem":true,"self_hosted":true}` | `{"cloud":true}` |
| description.long | An MQTT-based infrastructure platform that enables real-time communication between numerous IoT devices and cloud systems, with built-in data processing, 50+ integrations to enterprise backends, and AI agent capabilities for autonomous device monitoring and control. | 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 | 50 | - |
| integrations.list | `[{"name":"Microsoft Azure"},{"name":"Google Cloud"},{"name":"Oracle Cloud"},{"name":"AWS"},{"name":"OpenAI"},{"name":"Anthropic"},{"name":"Google Gemini"},{"name":"ClickHouse"},{"name":"Snowflake"},{"name":"Kafka"},{"name":"Pulsar"},{"name":"RabbitMQ"},{"name":"MySQL"},{"name":"PostgreSQL"},{"name":"MongoDB"},{"name":"InfluxDB"},{"name":"TDengine"},{"name":"TimescaleDB"},{"name":"BigQuery"},{"name":"S3"},{"name":"Azure Blob"},{"name":"Confluent Cloud"},{"name":"Webhook"}]` | - |
| market.availability | `{"primaryMarkets":[],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` | `{"primaryMarkets":[],"availabilityScope":"global","availableCountries":[],"notAvailableCountries":[]}` |
| platform.support | `{"cli":true,"web":true,"linux":true}` | `{"ios":true,"web":true,"android":true}` |
| pricing | `{"type":"subscription","plans":[{"free":false,"name":"Standard","contactSales":false},{"free":false,"name":"Enterprise","contactSales":false}],"summary":"Free tier available. Tiered subscription model with different SLA levels (99.9% and 99.99%). Pricing not transparently displayed.","freeTier":true,"sourceUrl":"https://www.emqx.com/zh/pricing","retrievedAt":"2026-08-19T18:25:14.074Z"}` | `{"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 | low | high |
| pricing.starting_price | - | `{"amount":98,"currency":"USD"}` |
| pricing.transparent | no | yes |
| reliability.sla_pct | 99.99 | 99.999 |
| reliability.status_page | - | yes |
| security.disclosure_policy | yes | - |
| security.gdpr | yes | yes |
| security.hipaa | - | yes |
| security.iso27001 | yes | - |
| security.soc2 | yes | yes |

## Capabilities (Realtime Messaging Infra)

| Capability | EMQX | 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 2026-09-01T14:31:52.982Z. "-" = undocumented, not absent.*