Bird vs Pusher

Discover how Bird compares to Pusher, and understand which is right for your use case, based on dimensions such as scalability, pricing, security, and their chat features.

What is Bird?

Bird (formerly MessageBird) is a cloud communications platform that offers SMS, voice, chat, and video capabilities. It focuses on enabling omnichannel communication for businesses, allowing them to connect with customers across various channels seamlessly.

When to use Bird

Pros and cons of Bird

What is Pusher?

Pusher is a first-generation pub/sub messaging service that provides bi-directional hosted APIs for adding realtime features to applications. Pusher offers two products:

Channels - Build scalable realtime features
Beams - Programmatic push notifications

When to use Pusher

Pros and cons of Pusher

Compare Bird and Pusher

Let’s compare Bird and Pusher, looking at key elements of their offering such as their scalability, pricing, security and chat feature set.

Disclaimer: This comparison was created based on documentation and resources freely available online about Bird and Pusher. The content was last updated on 16 May 2025 for Bird and on 8 May 2025 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 If you do find anything incorrect or out of date, then please let us know.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 Bird and Pusher

While both Bird 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 Bird

Vonage provides SMS, voice, and video APIs for customizable communication solutions.

Sendbird offers APIs and SDKs for live chat, realtime messaging, push notifications, and calls with WebSocket connections, UI kits, and backend integrations.

Twilio is a platform that provides developers with a suite of communication tools for building messaging infrastructure in their applications.

See more alternatives to Bird

Alternatives to Pusher

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.

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 Bird and Pusher stack up against Ably

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

Ably vs Bird 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

	Bird	Pusher	Why this matters
Scalability
Concurrent connections	Number of users that can be supported in a single chat.	Bird Unknown.	Pusher Unknown.	Number of users that can be supported in a single chat.
Connections	Number of connections that can be handled across the platform.	Bird Unknown.	Pusher 30k per month Growth Plus plan - custom plans may support higher number of connections. Pusher pricing page	Number of connections that can be handled across the platform.
Channels / rooms	Number of channels or rooms that can be handled across the platform.	Bird Unlimited.	Pusher Unlimited.	Number of channels or rooms that can be handled across the platform.
Messages	Number of messages that can be handled across the platform.	Bird Unlimited.	Pusher 90M per day. Growth Plus plan and custom plans may support higher number of messages. Read more	Number of messages that can be handled across the platform.
Message throughput	Number of messsages that can be published per second.	Bird Not publicly disclosed.	Pusher 10 messages per second. Limited to 10 messages per second per client connection.	Number of messsages that can be published per second.
Data integrity
Guaranteed message delivery	Ensures messages are never lost during transmission, even in the presence of network disruptions.	Bird 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.	Bird 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.	Bird No	Pusher No	Guarantees that each message is processed exactly once, preventing data inconsistencies that can arise from duplicate processing or missing messages.
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.	Bird 99.9% uptime/month for Bird API Voice and Bird Dashboard 99.95% uptime/month for SMS Services Read more	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.	Bird 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.	Bird No	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.	Bird No	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.
Latency	Low latency is crucial for realtime apps as it ensures swift and efficient data transmissions, providing a smoother and more responsive user experience.	Bird Unknown.	Pusher Not shared. Because apps exist in only one region, message latencies increase for clients the further they are from your chosen data center.	Low latency is crucial for realtime apps as it ensures swift and efficient data transmissions, providing a smoother and more responsive user experience.
Server-side batching	Reduces the overall message count, lowers costs, and mitigates the risk of hitting rate limits during high-throughput scenarios.	Bird No	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.
Connection state recovery	Automatically re-establish failed connections and replay missed messages.	Bird No	Pusher Partial Pusher provides some level of connection state recovery but doesn't offer built-in, automatic recovery.	Automatically re-establish failed connections and replay missed messages.
Ecosystem support
Supported realtime protocols	Support for multiple protocols provides the flexibility to choose a protocol that best suits your project’s requirements.	Bird Bird uses SMPP (Short Message Peer-to-Peer) for SMS messaging. Read more	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.
Supported languages	Supporting multiple languages and platforms offers greater flexibility when building cross-platform realtime apps.	Bird PHP Ruby Go Python C# Java NodeJS Read more	Pusher Android (uses Java library) AngularJS (uses JavaScript library) iOS: Swift and Objective-C Java JavaScript .NET Unity Flutter React Native Pusher beams SDK page	Supporting multiple languages and platforms offers greater flexibility when building cross-platform realtime apps.
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.	Bird Bird does not natively support chat rooms as part of its messaging API.	Pusher Pusher does not offer predefined features for chat rooms, but you can use Pusher Channels API to build: Group chat Private and Public chat Direct Message chat	Enables chat experiences to be tailored to various user needs, from one-on-one to large, scalable group discussions.
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.	Bird Partial You can integrate your Bird app with Pusher Channels, which supports presence channels to track and display users’ online status in realtime.	Pusher Yes	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.	Bird Partial You can integrate your Bird app with Pusher presence channels for occupancy tracking.	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.
Typing indicators	Show when others are typing in a chat room, enhancing realtime communication flow.	Bird No	Pusher Partial Pusher does not provide built-in typing indicators natively, but you can implement typing indicators using Pusher Channels or Presence Channels by sending custom events to notify users when someone is typing.	Show when others are typing in a chat room, enhancing realtime communication flow.
Room reactions	Customize the chat environment with reactions and other shared room states.	Bird No	Pusher Partial Pusher does not provide built-in support for room reactions or managing room states directly. However, you can implement these features using Pusher Channels by creating your custom logic.	Customize the chat environment with reactions and other shared room states.
Chat message attributes
Message edits and deletes	Allow users to modify or remove messages.	Bird No	Pusher No	Allow users to modify or remove messages.
Message reactions & emoticons	Boost engagement by enabling users to quickly express emotions or feedback on messages.	Bird No	Pusher No	Boost engagement by enabling users to quickly express emotions or feedback on messages.
Rich text support	Enhance messages with rich text formatting in chat.	Bird No	Pusher No	Enhance messages with rich text formatting in chat.
Media attachments	Support for sharing images, videos, and files in chat.	Bird Yes Bird's File Storage API enables its Conversations API to send messages with files. Bird also has MMS API that enables you to send and receive MMS messages that include multimedia content but only within the US and Canada. Read more	Pusher No	Support for sharing images, videos, and files in chat.
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.	Bird No	Pusher Yes	Notify users of important events from other chat rooms without them leaving the current chat, keeping them engaged and informed.
Role-based permissions	Control user roles and permissions to ensure proper access and moderation.	Bird Yes Bird uses Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) to ensure that only authorized individuals can access critical systems and information. Read more	Pusher Partial Pusher itself does not directly provide built-in role-based permissions. However, you can implement it in Pusher Channels using Pusher's user authentication and authorizing mechanics. Read more	Control user roles and permissions to ensure proper access and moderation.
UI kit	Customizable UI elements for a seamless chat integration.	Bird No	Pusher No	Customizable UI elements for a seamless chat integration.
Storage and history
Synchronous - automated moderation	Detect and manage harmful content automatically, before the message is broadcast to participants.	Bird No	Pusher No	Detect and manage harmful content automatically, before the message is broadcast to participants.