AWS AppSync vs Pusher

Discover how AWS AppSync compares to Pusher, and understand which is right for your use case, based on dimensions such as core features, pricing, reliability, and scalability.

What is AWS AppSync?

AWS AppSync is a fully managed service designed to streamline the process of building and deploying serverless GraphQL and pub/sub over WebSocket APIs. It enables developers to seamlessly handle and synchronize mobile app data in realtime across devices and users. Even when a mobile device is offline, AppSync permits data access and modification.

When to use AWS AppSync

Pros and cons of AWS AppSync

What is 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

When to use Pusher

Pros and cons of Pusher

Compare AWS AppSync and Pusher

Let’s compare AWS AppSync and Pusher, looking at key dimensions such as their core features, pricing, integrations & interoperability, quality of service, performance & availability and security & compliance.

Disclaimer: This comparison was created based on documentation and resources freely available online about AWS AppSync and Pusher. The content was last updated on 25 Sept 2025 for AWS AppSync and on 10 Jul 2026 for Pusher. 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 If you do find anything incorrect or out of date, then please let us know.

Alternatives to AWS AppSync and Pusher

While both AWS AppSync and Pusher are worth considering as options for realtime experiences, they aren’t without their limitations. We suggest evaluating them against the following alternatives to make sure you find the right solution for your needs.

Alternatives to AWS AppSync

Ably is the definitive realtime experience platform of the internet. Serving more WebSocket connections than any other pub/sub platform on earth. Businesses trust us to power their critical applications - reliably, securely and at serious scale.

Amazon API Gateway is a service for building, deploying, and managing APIs.

Firebase Realtime Database is a cloud-hosted database by Google, allowing developers to build realtime applications for web and mobile.

See more alternatives to AWS AppSync

Alternatives to Pusher

Firebase Realtime Database is a cloud-hosted database by Google, allowing developers to build realtime applications for web and mobile.

PubNub is a developer API platform that powers the realtime infrastructure in apps to build engaging Virtual Spaces where online communities can connect.

See more alternatives to Pusher

Discover how AWS AppSync and Pusher stack up against Ably

Ably is the definitive realtime experience platform of the internet. See how we compare to AWS AppSync and Pusher on key dimensions such as core features, pricing, integrations, QoS, performance, and security and compliance.

Ably vs AWS AppSync Ably vs Pusher

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

Get started for free

	AWS AppSync	Pusher	Why this matters
Core features
Pub/Sub messaging	Reduces communication code complexity, simplifying the process of building highly functional and architecturally complex realtime apps.	AWS AppSync Yes Read more	Pusher Yes	Reduces communication code complexity, simplifying the process of building highly functional and architecturally complex realtime apps.
Chat capabilities	Accelerates the time to implement rich chat experiences with features such as read receipts, typing indicators, and more.	AWS AppSync Partial AWS AppSync can be used with other AWS products to build a chat product. Find out how	Pusher No Pusher has channels which enable read receipts, but no SDK, reactions, or read-receipts built in. Read more	Accelerates the time to implement rich chat experiences with features such as read receipts, typing indicators, and more.
Collaboration capabilities	Enables you to quickly integrate realtime collaborative features like live cursors, member location, avatar stacks, and component locking.	AWS AppSync Partial AWS AppSync provides the primitives to build basic collaborative experiences. See example	Pusher No	Enables you to quickly integrate realtime collaborative features like live cursors, member location, avatar stacks, and component locking.
State sync capabilities	Enables realtime data synchronization across devices and users, ensuring a cohesive and up-to-date user experience.	AWS AppSync Partial Can be built on top of AppSync, but not available out of the box.	Pusher No Pusher has 'cache channels', but this is just persist-last. Read more	Enables realtime data synchronization across devices and users, ensuring a cohesive and up-to-date user experience.
Presence	Maintaining a view of which users are connected, and their associated metadata, enables their online status to be updated in realtime.	AWS AppSync Partial "AWS AppSync does not provide events related to client connections or disconnections" (see source) - but it can be built on top of it by composing multiple AWS products.	Pusher Yes Pusher presence channels show member join/leave events and metadata, but are capped at 100 members per channel (1KB user object, 128-char user ID limit). Beyond 100 members, Pusher recommends subscription counting events instead. These provide a count but not individual member identity. Read more	Maintaining a view of which users are connected, and their associated metadata, enables their online status to be updated in realtime.
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.	AWS AppSync No	Pusher Yes Pusher supports occupancy tracking on its presence channels using presence Webhooks. Read more	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.
Message interactions	Enables interaction with previously-sent messages, facilitating the implementation of features like message reactions and threads.	AWS AppSync No	Pusher No	Enables interaction with previously-sent messages, facilitating the implementation of features like message reactions and threads.
Message history	Enables clients to catch up on missed messages when inactive, ensuring a user doesn’t miss any important messages.	AWS AppSync Partial Looks like you can get message history, but only in combination with other AWS services see source	Pusher No Pusher does not offer any message history functionality. But Cache Channels stores the last event sent to the channel - it is stored for a max of 30 min or until a new event arrives. This can be useful in some use cases.	Enables clients to catch up on missed messages when inactive, ensuring a user doesn’t miss any important messages.
Push notifications	Cross-platform push notifications make it possible to deliver important and timely messages to users even when they’re inactive.	AWS AppSync Yes Find out how	Pusher Yes Pusher's product Beams is a cross-platform push notifications API.	Cross-platform push notifications make it possible to deliver important and timely messages to users even when they’re inactive.
Message delta compression	Minimizes bandwidth and can reduce latency, particularly in scenarios where continuous updates are sent.	AWS AppSync Yes See tutorial	Pusher No	Minimizes bandwidth and can reduce latency, particularly in scenarios where continuous updates are sent.
Programmatic management	Enables the automation of provisioning, management, and testing of service resources, simplifying integration with existing development workflows such as CI.	AWS AppSync Yes You can perform programmatic management using the AWS SDKs (Software Development Kits), AWS Command Line Interface (CLI), or infrastructure-as-code tools like AWS CloudFormation or AWS CDK (Cloud Development Kit).	Pusher Yes Pusher supports programmatic management of its services via APIs, Webhooks, SDKs, and serverless functions for Pusher Channels. Read more	Enables the automation of provisioning, management, and testing of service resources, simplifying integration with existing development workflows such as CI.
Server-side batching	Reduces the overall message count, lowers costs, and mitigates the risk of hitting rate limits during high-throughput scenarios.		Pusher Partial Pusher provides a Batch Events API for server-side batching, allowing developers to send multiple events in a single API call.	Reduces the overall message count, lowers costs, and mitigates the risk of hitting rate limits during high-throughput scenarios.
Maximum message size	A message size limit below your payload size means custom chunking on both publisher and subscriber, plus manual ordering logic — significant engineering overhead for LLM responses, document content, or structured data.		Pusher 10KB hard limit. Messages that exceed this limit are silently dropped without returning an error to the publisher. Applications requiring larger payloads must implement custom chunking on both publisher and subscriber sides. Read more	A message size limit below your payload size means custom chunking on both publisher and subscriber, plus manual ordering logic — significant engineering overhead for LLM responses, document content, or structured data.
AI streaming support	Without purpose-built AI streaming infrastructure, ordering, chunking, and session recovery have to be built and maintained across the stack - and they tend to fail at the moments users notice most.		Pusher No Pusher’s 10KB message limit, absence of ordering guarantees, and lack of message history make it unsuitable for production LLM token streaming without significant custom engineering.	Without purpose-built AI streaming infrastructure, ordering, chunking, and session recovery have to be built and maintained across the stack - and they tend to fail at the moments users notice most.
Pricing
Free plan	With a free plan, you can test the service’s functionality and compatibility with your project before committing to a paid plan.	AWS AppSync Yes 250,000 API requests free per month for 12 months with the AWS Free Tier.	Pusher Partial The Sandbox plan includes 200,000 messages per day and 100 concurrent connections. Intended for testing rather than production use.	With a free plan, you can test the service’s functionality and compatibility with your project before committing to a paid plan.
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.	AWS AppSync You pay only for what you use with no minimum fees or mandatory service usage. You are billed separately for query and data modification operations, and for performing realtime updates on your data. Read more	Pusher Pusher has free, flexible, and Enterprise plans based on number of messages and concurrent connections. See more information	The pricing model should align with your project's expected load, usage patterns, and budget in order to be cost-effective and efficient.
Pricing plans	The pricing plans offered by cost.		Pusher Pricing is tier-based by daily message volume and concurrent connections. One event broadcast to multiple subscribers counts as one message per subscriber delivered (the fan-out multiplier). Sandbox for free: 100 connections, 200,000 messages/day Startup $49/month: 1 million messages/day, 500 concurrent connections Pro $99/month: 4 million messages/day, 2,000 concurrent connections Business $299/month: 10 million messages/day, 5,000 concurrent connections Premium $499/month: 20 million messages/day, 10,000 concurrent connections Enterprise: custom When limits are exceeded, Pusher blocks new connection attempts and server trigger calls return a 403 error.	The pricing plans offered by cost.
Integrations & interoperability
SDKs	Supporting multiple languages and platforms offers greater flexibility when building cross-platform realtime apps.	AWS AppSync iOS Android JavaScript See source	Pusher Android (uses Java library) AngularJS (uses JavaScript library) iOS: Swift and Objective-C Java JavaScript .NET Unity Flutter React Native	Supporting multiple languages and platforms offers greater flexibility when building cross-platform realtime apps.
Supported realtime protocols	Support for multiple protocols provides the flexibility to choose a protocol that best suits your project’s requirements.	AWS AppSync WebSockets	Pusher WebSockets Fallback to Comet (XHR) and Long Polling for older browsers	Support for multiple protocols provides the flexibility to choose a protocol that best suits your project’s requirements.
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.	AWS AppSync AWS Lambda	Pusher Limited integrations; lacks native support for event streaming platforms	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.
Streaming & queueing	Provides a dependable method to reroute messages from the service to third-party streams and queues for further processing.	AWS AppSync AWS AppSync doesn't directly integrate with streaming and queuing services for data ingress and egress, but you can use the following AWS services alongside AppSync to build scalable and event-driven architectures for your applications: Ingress: Amazon Kinesis Data Streams Amazon SQS (Simple Queue Service) Egress: AWS Lambda Amazon SNS (Simple Notification Service)	Pusher No	Provides a dependable method to reroute messages from the service to third-party streams and queues for further processing.
Observability services	Enables realtime monitoring and troubleshooting by offering insights into service behavior directly in your observability platform of choice.	AWS AppSync Partial Through AWS X-Ray native integration. Read more	Pusher Yes Pusher provides Datadog and Librato integrations.	Enables realtime monitoring and troubleshooting by offering insights into service behavior directly in your observability platform of choice.
CI/CD tools	Makes it possible to provision and configure service infrastructure as part of a CI or CD pipeline, enabling repeatable and reliable deployments.	AWS AppSync No	Pusher No	Makes it possible to provision and configure service infrastructure as part of a CI or CD pipeline, enabling repeatable and reliable deployments.
Quality of Service
Proven scalability	Scalability is vital as it ensures the service can handle increased data load or users without compromising performance.	AWS AppSync No published metrics are available. However, this works on top of serverless technology which means theoretically it should scale to millions of concurrent connection with little to no tuning from the customer.	Pusher No No scalability metrics published.	Scalability is vital as it ensures the service can handle increased data load or users without compromising performance.
Guaranteed message delivery	Ensures messages are never lost during transmission, even in the presence of network disruptions.	AWS AppSync No	Pusher No	Ensures messages are never lost during transmission, even in the presence of network disruptions.
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.	AWS AppSync No	Pusher No	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.
Exactly-once message delivery	Guarantees that each message is processed exactly once, preventing data inconsistencies that can arise from duplicate processing or missing messages.	AWS AppSync No	Pusher No	Guarantees that each message is processed exactly once, preventing data inconsistencies that can arise from duplicate processing or missing messages.
Connection state recovery	Without connection state recovery, filling a disconnection gap requires a custom message store, fetch-on-reconnect logic, and deduplication - engineering the platform should handle natively.		Pusher No Messages sent while a client is disconnected are permanently lost. Cache Channels stores only the most recent event per channel for up to 30 minutes; it is a state snapshot, not a replay mechanism. Read more	Without connection state recovery, filling a disconnection gap requires a custom message store, fetch-on-reconnect logic, and deduplication - engineering the platform should handle natively.
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.	AWS AppSync 99.95 uptime SLA	Pusher Channels SLA: API will be made available with an Annual API Uptime Percentage of 99.95%. Pusher will use commercially reasonable efforts to make Pusher Beams available with an Annual Uptime Percentage of > 99.95%. Read more	An uptime guarantee instills confidence in the reliability of the service and protects your business from the negative impacts of downtime.
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.	AWS AppSync No	Pusher No	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.
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.	AWS AppSync Partial Single region by default - multi region deployment of AWS AppSync would require integration of Amazon DynamoDB Global Tables.	Pusher No Pusher apps are located in a single data center rather than distributed across multiple data centers. Any latency issues that occur in that data center will affect all apps hosted there.	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.
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.	AWS AppSync Partial Not available by default - but could be built with the integration of Amazon DynamoDB Global Tables.	Pusher No Pusher apps are located in a single data center rather than distributed across multiple data centers. If that data center goes offline then all apps hosted there are affected.	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.
Low latency	Low latency is crucial for realtime apps as it ensures swift and efficient data transmissions, providing a smoother and more responsive user experience.	AWS AppSync Unknown, although reports in forums suggest it is 200-500 ms.	Pusher No Latencies typically 90–200 ms (often higher outside US/EU) due to a centralized hub architecture with limited regional clusters.	Low latency is crucial for realtime apps as it ensures swift and efficient data transmissions, providing a smoother and more responsive user experience.
Security & compliance
API key authentication	Simplifies the authentication code on trusted servers compared to requesting, managing, and refreshing tokens.	AWS AppSync Yes Learn more	Pusher Yes	Simplifies the authentication code on trusted servers compared to requesting, managing, and refreshing tokens.
Token-based authentication	Provides a means to securely authenticate user devices against your user management system.	AWS AppSync Yes JWT via Amazon Cognito User Pools. See how it works	Pusher Yes	Provides a means to securely authenticate user devices against your user management system.
Single Sign-On (SSO) authentication	SSO streamlines login processes, boosts security by minimizing password use, and meets compliance needs for secure data access management.	AWS AppSync Yes Can set up auth with AWS IAM, and AWS IAM can be configured with any identity source (e.g. Okta). Learn more	Pusher Partial On Enterprise plans - Okta only. Teams on Azure AD, Google Workspace, or any other SAML provider cannot use SSO with Pusher without a workaround. Read more	SSO streamlines login processes, boosts security by minimizing password use, and meets compliance needs for secure data access management.
Rules for permissions and operations	Provides control over which users can subscribe and publish to certain channels.	AWS AppSync Yes Learn more	Pusher Partial Pusher provides a mechanism for implementing rules and permissions primarily through its Channels service. It requires you to implement an endpoint which they will call to check if an operation is allowed.	Provides control over which users can subscribe and publish to certain channels.
End-to-end encryption	Ensures that the data transmitted between the client and the API server remains confidential and secure while in transit.	AWS AppSync Yes TLS1.2 supported; TLS1.3 recommended. Read more	Pusher Yes	Ensures that the data transmitted between the client and the API server remains confidential and secure while in transit.
Encryption at rest	Ensures data stored by the service is secure and compliant, while also mitigating the risks of a data breach.	AWS AppSync Yes Done using AWS Key Management Service keys. This ensures that data in services like AppSync is securely encrypted. Read more	Pusher No	Ensures data stored by the service is secure and compliant, while also mitigating the risks of a data breach.
Compliance	Compliance with regulations can impact your ability to meet legal obligations in your industry.	AWS AppSync SOC PCI HIPAA/HIPAA BAA IRAP C5 ENS High OSPAR HITRUST CSF programs	Pusher ISO 27001:2013 - via MessageBird GDPR - via Bird DPA HIPAA compliance is achievable via a conduit approach without a BAA Read more on the Pusher Security page and Bird Pusher portal.	Compliance with regulations can impact your ability to meet legal obligations in your industry.