Ably vs CometChat
Discover how CometChat compares to Ably, and understand which is right for your use case, based on dimensions such as scalability, pricing, security, and their chat features.
What is Ably?
Ably is a realtime experience platform that provides APIs and SDKs to power realtime functionality - with no realtime infrastructure to build and maintain. Our application building blocks and integrations enable developers to quickly create live experiences from live chat and data broadcast, to collaborative UXs and notifications.
What is CometChat?
CometChat is a messaging platform designed for integration into various applications, offering text, voice, and video chat capabilities. It supports extensive customization through SDKs and UI kits.
Compare Ably and CometChat
Let’s compare Ably and CometChat, looking at key elements of their offering such as their scalability, pricing, security and chat feature set.
| Scalability | |||
Concurrent connections | Number of users that can be supported in a single chat. | Ably | CometChat Up 100k concurrent connections can be supported. The use of certain features, such as delivery receipts, read receipts, and typing indicators, may impact these limits. For example, groups with all features enabled can accommodate up to 300 members. |
Connections | Number of connections that can be handled across the platform. | Ably | CometChat Up to 500k. |
Channels / rooms | Number of channels or rooms that can be handled across the platform. | Ably | CometChat Unlimited. |
Messages | Number of messages that can be handled across the platform. | Ably Unlimited. See pricing for details | CometChat Unlimited. |
Message throughput | Number of messsages that can be published per second. | Ably From:
| CometChat Up to 333 messages per second. API calls for standard operations are rate limited to 20000 requests per min. |
| Data integrity | |||
Guaranteed message delivery | Ensures messages are never lost during transmission, even in the presence of network disruptions. | Ably Yes | CometChat No |
Guaranteed message ordering | Maintains the sequence of messages as they were sent. This is particularly important in apps where the chronological order of messages is essential for meaningful communication. | Ably Yes | CometChat No |
Exactly-once message delivery | Guarantees that each message is processed exactly once, preventing data inconsistencies that can arise from duplicate processing or missing messages. | Ably Yes | CometChat No |
| Performance & availability | |||
Uptime Guarantee | An uptime guarantee instills confidence in the reliability of the service and protects your business from the negative impacts of downtime. | Ably 99.999% | CometChat 99.99% uptime guarantee. Read more |
Global edge network | By bringing servers (Points of Presence, or PoP) geographically closer to the devices of end users, and routing requests to the nearest PoP, global latency is reduced to a minimum. | Ably Yes All Ably customer data runs across all our 7 geographically-distributed core routing datacenters by default. Ably's network of 385 edge acceleration points-of-presence is growing day by day. | CometChat Yes Read more |
Multi-region data replication (message durability) | By replicating data across multiple regions, the risk of data loss or downtime is greatly mitigated since if data is lost or a server fails in one region, the information can be retrieved from another. | Ably Yes | CometChat No |
No single point of failure or congestion | Having no single point of failure means a system is resilient and can continue to operate even if one part fails. Avoiding a single point of congestion ensures messages flow efficiently across the system and avoids bottlenecks that could lead to performance issues under load. | Ably Yes | CometChat No |
Latency | Low latency is crucial for realtime apps as it ensures swift and efficient data transmissions, providing a smoother and more responsive user experience. | Ably <50ms round trip latency for the 99th percentile; <35ms latency once traffic arrives within AWS | CometChat Under optimal test conditions, CometChat has a one-way latency of less than 50 ms response time. It is not mentioned what its roundtrip latency is. Read more |
Server-side batching | Reduces the overall message count, lowers costs, and mitigates the risk of hitting rate limits during high-throughput scenarios. | Ably Yes | CometChat No |
Connection state recovery | Automatically re-establish failed connections and replay missed messages. | Ably Yes | CometChat Yes CometChat supports connection state recovery, monitoring realtime connection status to its WebSocket servers. If disconnected, the SDK auto-reconnects, indicating "connecting" and "connected" states. Read more |
| Ecosystem support | |||
Supported realtime protocols | Support for multiple protocols provides the flexibility to choose a protocol that best suits your project’s requirements. | Ably
| CometChat WebSocket. |
Supported languages | Supporting multiple languages and platforms offers greater flexibility when building cross-platform realtime apps. | Ably
| CometChat CometChat supports several programming languages for effective integration with CometChat's SDKs and APIs:
|
| Chat room types | |||
Multi-type chat support (group, DM, supergroups) | Enables chat experiences to be tailored to various user needs, from one-on-one to large, scalable group discussions. | Ably
| CometChat
|
| Chat room management | |||
Presence | Maintaining a view of which users are connected, and their associated metadata, enables their online status to be updated in realtime. | Ably Yes | CometChat Yes CometChat supports user presence out-of-the-box through CometChat SDKs and its UI kits. The SDKs include options for subscribing to presence updates to all users, specific roles, or friends. |
Occupancy | High-level metrics about the clients currently connected to a channel make it simple to show things such as connected user count, or display which channels are the most popular. | Ably Yes | CometChat No |
Typing indicators | Show when others are typing in a chat room, enhancing realtime communication flow. | Ably Yes Ably Chat provides typing indicators to show when users are composing messages. | CometChat Yes |
Room reactions | Customize the chat environment with reactions and other shared room states. | Ably Yes Ably Chat supports room-level reactions with a variety of emojis. Ephemeral reactions are not counted or aggregated. | CometChat No |
| Chat message attributes | |||
Message edits and deletes | Allow users to modify or remove messages. | Ably Yes Ably Chat supports soft deletion of messages and message edits. | CometChat Yes |
Message reactions & emoticons | Boost engagement by enabling users to quickly express emotions or feedback on messages. | Ably Yes Ably Chat supports reactions at the room level and message level. | CometChat Yes |
Rich text support | Enhance messages with rich text formatting in chat. | Ably Yes | CometChat Yes |
Media attachments | Support for sharing images, videos, and files in chat. | Ably Partial Links are supported. | CometChat Yes CometChat in-app messaging allows users to send and receive various documents and multimedia files through its SDKs and UI kits. Read more |
| Chat application and user state | |||
In-app notifications | Notify users of important events from other chat rooms without them leaving the current chat, keeping them engaged and informed. | Ably Yes In-app notifications supported via Ably Pub/Sub. | CometChat Yes CometChat supports in-app notifications through CometChat's push notification service. |
Role-based permissions | Control user roles and permissions to ensure proper access and moderation. | Ably No Ably Chat doesn't current support role-based permissions, but will soon. | CometChat Yes |
UI kit | Customizable UI elements for a seamless chat integration. | Ably No Ably Chat doesn't currently offer a UI kit. | CometChat Yes CometChat supports UI kits for:
|
| Storage and history | |||
Synchronous - automated moderation | Detect and manage harmful content automatically, before the message is broadcast to participants. | Ably Yes Ably Chat supports synchronous moderation using Hive AI. You can also integrate with a third-party moderation provider. | CometChat Yes |
Asynchronous - automated moderation | Detect and manage harmful content automatically, after the message is broadcast to participants. | Ably Yes Ably Chat supports asynchronous moderation using Hive AI. You can also integrate with a third-party moderation provider. | CometChat Yes |
Manual moderation via dashboards | Tools for moderators to detect harmful messages and manage them effectively. | Ably Yes Ably Chat supports manual moderation through Hive Dashboard. | CometChat Yes CometChat lets human experts handle complex moderation cases. It allows users to set rules that flag borderline content for human review. |
Ban users | Remove problematic users from the chat to maintain a healthy environment. | Ably Partial Ably Chat doesn't support banning users outright, but you can approximate user banning by revoking user access tokens. | CometChat Yes |
| Dev tools | |||
Programmatic management | Enables the automation of provisioning, management, and testing of service resources, simplifying integration with existing development workflows such as CI. | Ably Yes | CometChat Yes |
| Pricing | |||
Pricing model | The pricing model should align with your project's expected load, usage patterns, and budget in order to be cost-effective and efficient. | Ably Ably offers a per-minute, consumption-based pricing model. This gives granular control over your costs, eliminating the need to pay for peak users or connections. | CometChat CometChat pricing is based on the number of MAUs. Overages apply for additional MAU's and peak concurrent connection - over set quota. CometChat pricing page |
Pricing illustration | An example price based on 5 live streaming chat events and 50K attendees. | Ably $1029.95 Cost of messages = $1026.95 Cost of connection minutes = $2.00 Cost of channels = $1 Explore the pricing estimator tool | CometChat $24,419 Base price - $669 Overages per additional concurrent user over 1250 - $23,750 Note: Assumes same users attend each event, to keep MAU at minimum |
Free plan | With a free plan, you can test the service’s functionality and compatibility with your project before committing to a paid plan. | Ably Yes | CometChat Yes Free for up to 100 users. |
Pricing plans | The pricing plans offered by cost. | Ably The free and paid plans are:
| CometChat
Overages:
|
| Support for additional realtime features | |||
Pub/Sub messaging | Reduces communication code complexity, simplifying the process of building highly functional and architecturally complex realtime apps. | Ably Yes Ably provides robust pub/sub messaging capabilities over serverless WebSockets. | CometChat No |
Collaboration capabilities | Enables you to quickly integrate realtime collaborative features like live cursors, member location, avatar stacks, and component locking. | Ably Yes The Spaces SDK provides an opinionated set of abstractions for collaborative environments including live cursors, avatar stacks and component locking. Learn more | CometChat Yes CometChat offers collaboration capabilities with tools like polls, whiteboards, and collaborative documents. |
Database sync capabilities | Database sync capabilities enable realtime updates between your database and UI, ensuring the UI reflects changes in the database instantly, with data consistency, and without the need for polling. | Ably Yes Ably provides a self-hostable and managed database connector to stream updates over our serverless WebSocket platform. Ably also provides the Models SDK for seamless connector interactions. Learn more | CometChat No |
Notifications | Send notifications directly to users screens, from chat responses to news alerts, or game updates, whether or not an application is open and running. | Ably Yes Support for Android and iOS push notifications. Improved web push for browsers currently in progress. | CometChat Yes |
Asset tracking | State-of-the-art asset tracking across last mile logistics, food delivery applications, and urban mobility services. | Ably Yes | CometChat No |
| Integrations & interoperability | |||
AI models | Allows you to integrate AI models, like GPT, into your app. | Ably Yes Ably Chat supports the integration of AI models for automatic sync moderation. | CometChat |
Serverless functions | Enables integration with third-party cloud providers by facilitating the execution of custom code against messages to perform business logic like on-the-fly translation. | Ably
| CometChat No |
Streaming & queueing | Provides a dependable method to reroute messages from the service to third-party streams and queues for further processing. | Ably Egress:
Ingress:
The Database Connector is designed for any database in the SQL-family, but at the moment only supports Postgres. Please contact us if you want support in other databases. | CometChat No |
Observability services | Enables realtime monitoring and troubleshooting by offering insights into service behavior directly in your observability platform of choice. | Ably Yes | CometChat No |
| Security & compliance | |||
API key authentication | Simplifies the authentication code on trusted servers compared to requesting, managing, and refreshing tokens. | Ably Yes | CometChat Yes |
Single Sign-On (SSO) authentication | SSO streamlines login processes, boosts security by minimizing password use, and meets compliance needs for secure data access management. | Ably Yes | CometChat Yes |
Rules for permissions and operations | Provides control over which users can subscribe and publish to certain channels. | Ably Yes | CometChat Yes CometChat implements rules for permissions and user control. It features role-based permissions that allow you to manage user actions. |
End-to-end encryption | Ensures that the data transmitted between the client and the API server remains confidential and secure while in transit. | Ably Yes Ably offers SSL/TLS encryption and 256-bit AES encryption using private keys. Message payloads can only be decrypted by other clients that share your secret key. Learn more about Ably's encryption | CometChat Yes CometChat implements end-to-end encryption using Virgil E3Kit. |
Compliance | Compliance with regulations can impact your ability to meet legal obligations in your industry. | Ably
Ably also offers EU and US-only data storage. | CometChat CometChat is compliant with four security standards:
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Disclaimer: This comparison was created based on documentation and resources freely available online about Ably and CometChat. The content was last updated on 30 Apr 2025 for Ably and on 1 May 2025 for CometChat. 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.
Hear from companies gaining their realtime advantage with AblyThe core infrastructure for delivering live sports data to our customers is Ably. We sleep easier at night knowing it can be relied on for consistent low latency and message integrity at scale.”
Gary Williams
IT Infrastructure Team Lead
Ably immediately solved our issues around the user experience and scale. It supports our customers’ stringent expectations as well as future product development.”
Max Freiert
Product Group Lead
Ably copes easily with big loads. We don’t have to worry about stability, even when we get huge traffic spikes.”
Johan Bengtsson
CTO
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
