What is Firebase Cloud Messaging?
Firebase Cloud Messaging (FCM) is a free cross-platform messaging service for sending and receiving messages and notifications across platforms like iOS, Android, and the web via cloud-based infrastructure. It supports both upstream and downstream messaging.
8 alternatives to Firebase Cloud Messaging to consider
We’ll now look at alternatives to Firebase Cloud Messaging - competing technologies that allow you to build realtime experiences for end-users.
Ably
Ably is realtime infrastructure for AI, chat and live apps. It’s trusted by 7k+ companies and powers more WebSocket connections than any other pub/sub platform. We run the delivery layer, so ordering, reconnects and failover are handled for you. Simple APIs and use case specific SDKs mean there’s no infrastructure to build or maintain.
Key Ably features and capabilities
- Performance: 6.5ms message delivery latency within a region, and a 37ms global median round trip.
- Integrity: Each publisher’s messages arrive in order at every subscriber. Clients that reconnect within two minutes resume automatically, and History covers longer gaps.
- Reliability: Designed for 99.999999% message survivability, with each acknowledged message stored in multiple physical locations.
- Availability: 7+ years without a global outage. Regional incidents are routed around automatically across 12 regions and 750+ edge locations. 99.999% uptime SLA on Business and Enterprise.
- One platform, six products: Pub/Sub, AI Transport, Chat, Spaces, LiveObjects and LiveSync share the same guarantees.
- Integrations and SDKs: Pre-built integrations for Kafka, AWS Lambda, Cloudflare Workers and Datadog, and SDKs for 20+ languages.
- Pricing: Priced by monthly active users, with every product in every package. Free for up to 500 MAUs; Pro from $29 a month, billed annually.
Amazon SNS
AWS Simple Notification Service (SNS) is a fully managed notification service that uses the Pub/Sub model to provide message delivery from publishers to subscribers.
Pusher
Pusher is a managed pub/sub messaging service that provides hosted APIs and SDKs for adding realtime features to web and mobile applications. Pusher’s offers two products:
- Channels: WebSocket pub/sub messaging
- Beams: Programmatic push notifications for mobile and web
OneSignal
OneSignal is a platform that delivers push notifications, in-app messages, and emails. It offers tools for targeting, automation, and analytics to help businesses manage and optimize their communication with users.
PubNub
PubNub is a developer API platform that powers the realtime infrastructure in apps to build engaging Virtual Spaces where online communities can connect. It can serve as the foundation for online chat, live events, geolocation, remote IoT control, and realtime updates.
Pushwoosh
Pushwoosh is a push notification marketing service that allows developers to send notifications across multiple platforms, including iOS, Android, and the web. It offers audience segmentation, automation, cross-channel triggered campaigns, and personalized messaging.
Apple Push Notification Service
Apple Push Notification Service (APNs) allows developers and third-party services to send notifications to Apple devices, including iPhones, iPads, Macs, and Apple Watches. APNs supports message delivery for alerts, badges, and background updates. Notifications are integrated with Apple’s system security.
Leanplum
Leanplum is a multi-channel customer engagement platform for mobile apps that provides personalized messaging, emails, push notifications, in-app messages, and A/B testing. It allows developers to create dynamic campaigns based on user behavior and offers detailed analytics for customer engagement and optimization.
Disclaimer: The information on the alternatives presented here was based on documentation and resources freely available online and was last updated on 5 Nov 2026. Be sure to double-check everything before you make any decisions. If you do find anything incorrect or out of date, then please let us know.
Try Ably for free to discover the benefits for yourself
Ably has built reliable realtime infrastructure so you don’t have to. On our free plan you benefit from:
- Up to 500 monthly active users (MAUs)
- Every Ably product and protocol
- No credit card required
