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.
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.
Ably
Ably is the definitive realtime experience platform of the internet, serving more WebSocket connections than any other pub/sub platform. Our product suite places composable realtime in the hands of developers. Simple APIs, use case specific SDKs and pre-built integrations, enables the creation of a host of live experiences - including live updates, chat, collaboration, notifications and fan engagement - with no infrastructure to build.
Key Ably features and capabilities
- Ably is underpinned by a globally-distributed network of datacenters and edge acceleration points of presence.
- Ably‘s SDKs provide a consistent and idiomatic API across a variety of supported platforms.
- Connect with pre-built integrations for Webhooks, Lambdas, databases, cloud services, observability tools and stream processors.
- Build the ultimate realtime app with our feature rich suite of products - Pub/Sub and notifications, Chat, LiveObjects, LiveSync, and Spaces.
- Guaranteed message ordering and delivery.
- Global fault tolerance and a 99.999% uptime SLA.
- 6.5ms round trip message delivery latency.
- Elastic scalability to handle millions of concurrent clients.
- Consumption-based, per-minute-billing, built for scale. Ably not only enables you to make the most of your budget, but also enjoy greater flexibility, faster build times and a quicker ROI.
Disclaimer: The information on the alternatives presented here was based on documentation and resources freely available online and was last updated on 12 Aug 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:
- 6M monthly messages
- 200 concurrent channels
- 200 concurrent connections
