Cloudflare Durable Objects vs Socket.IO
Discover how Cloudflare Durable Objects compares to Socket.IO, and understand which is right for your use case, based on dimensions such as core features, pricing, reliability, and scalability.
What is Cloudflare Durable Objects ?
Cloudflare Durable Objects provides an easy way to manage stateful objects with low-latency access and real-time updates. It enables developers to create collaborative, real-time applications using WebSocket connections, ensuring data persistence and consistent performance across distributed clients.
What is Socket.IO?
Socket.IO is a library created in 2010 that provides realtime, bi-directional communication between clients and servers. It allows the management of connections, sending and receiving messages, and more. Built on top of the WebSocket protocol, it provides additional capabilities compared to raw WebSockets. WebTransport (a WebSocket alternative) is also supported.
Compare Cloudflare Durable Objects and Socket.IO
Let’s compare Cloudflare Durable Objects and Socket.IO, looking at key dimensions such as their core features, pricing, integrations, QoS, performance, and security and compliance.
Disclaimer:This comparison was created based on documentation and resources freely available online about Cloudflare Durable Objects and Socket.IO. The content was last updated on 10 Oct 2024 for Cloudflare Durable Objects and on 26 Sept 2024 for Socket.IO. Be sure to double-check everything before you make any decisions. If you do find anything incorrect or out of date, then please contact us.
Core features | |||
Pub/Sub messaging | Reduces communication code complexity, simplifying the process of building highly functional and architecturally complex realtime apps. | Cloudflare Durable Objects Partial Cloudflare Durable Objects does not have built-in pub/sub. However, Cloudflare has an MQTT-powered pub/sub service in private beta which can be integrated with Durable Objects. Read more | Socket.IO No Need to rely on a third party - e.g. use a Redis adapter to broadcast events to clients through the Redis pub/sub mechanism. Read more |
Chat capabilities | Accelerates the time to implement rich chat experiences with features such as read receipts, typing indicators, and more. | Cloudflare Durable Objects Partial Cloudflare Durable Objects can implement some chat features, but some require additional Cloudflare services or custom development. File sharing would require integration with Cloudflare R2 for file storage. | Socket.IO Partial As it's a library, you need to create the chat capabilities yourself. But this can be done using Socket.IO. |
Collaboration capabilities | Enables you to quickly integrate realtime collaborative features like live cursors, member location, avatar stacks, and component locking. | Cloudflare Durable Objects Partial Cloudflare Durable Objects can support collaboration capabilities, but require integration with storage services like Cloudflare Workers KV for features like avatar stacks and location data. | Socket.IO Partial As it's a library, you need to implement collaboration capabilities yourself. But you can do this using Socket.IO itself. |
State sync capabilities | Enables realtime data synchronization across devices and users, ensuring a cohesive and up-to-date user experience. | Cloudflare Durable Objects Yes | Socket.IO No The library does not support this. You would need to create a bespoke state sync capability or integrate a third party library to get state synchronisation. |
Presence | Maintaining a view of which users are connected, and their associated metadata, enables their online status to be updated in realtime. | Cloudflare Durable Objects No Cloudflare Durable Objects does not natively support presence; it requires custom implementation. | Socket.IO Partial It is the duty of your application to link a Socket.IO connection to a user account. Read more |
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. | Cloudflare Durable Objects No | Socket.IO |
Message interactions | Enables interaction with previously-sent messages, facilitating the implementation of features like message reactions and threads. | Cloudflare Durable Objects No | Socket.IO Partial You would need to build the message interaction functionality yourself on top of Socket.IO. Learn more |
Message history | Enables clients to catch up on missed messages when inactive, ensuring a user doesn’t miss any important messages. | Cloudflare Durable Objects No | Socket.IO No The Socket.IO server does not store messages. Your application has to persist messages somewhere for the clients that are not currently connected. Learn more |
Push notifications | Cross-platform push notifications make it possible to deliver important and timely messages to users even when they’re inactive. | Cloudflare Durable Objects No | Socket.IO No Socket.IO not support Push notifications. You would need to build this capability yourself and/or use another library. Learn more |
Message delta compression | Minimizes bandwidth and can reduce latency, particularly in scenarios where continuous updates are sent. | Cloudflare Durable Objects No Cloudflare Durable Objects supports the Brotli and gzip compression algorithms for all responses, rather than delta compression. | Socket.IO No |
Programmatic management | Enables the automation of provisioning, management, and testing of service resources, simplifying integration with existing development workflows such as CI. | Cloudflare Durable Objects Yes Programmatic management is possible through the Durable Objects REST API. | Socket.IO Yes The Socket.IO server is initialised in code. It is possible to configure the socket.IO server's configuration in code as well. Learn more |
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. | Cloudflare Durable Objects No | Socket.IO Yes Open Source framework that uses the MIT license. |
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. | Cloudflare Durable Objects Cloudflare Durable Objects is only available on a pay-as-you-go plan. The plan offers 1 million requests and then $0.15/million requests. Connections to Durable Objects are billed as one request. Read more | Socket.IO Free and open-source. |
Integrations & interoperability | |||
SDKs | Supporting multiple languages and platforms offers greater flexibility when building cross-platform realtime apps. | Cloudflare Durable Objects
| Socket.IO Client and Server APIs only.
|
Supported realtime protocols | Support for multiple protocols provides the flexibility to choose a protocol that best suits your project’s requirements. | Cloudflare Durable Objects
| Socket.IO
|
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. | Cloudflare Durable Objects
| Socket.IO No It is not possible to trigger serverless functions with Socket.IO on it's own. See this Reddit post for more info |
Streaming & queueing | Provides a dependable method to reroute messages from the service to third-party streams and queues for further processing. | Cloudflare Durable Objects No Cloudflare Durable Objects itself doesn't directly support specific message brokers or streaming platforms. Instead, it provides a runtime environment where you can implement your own logic. | Socket.IO No Socket.IO does not offer native queues and streaming. |
Observability services | Enables realtime monitoring and troubleshooting by offering insights into service behavior directly in your observability platform of choice. | Cloudflare Durable Objects Partial For observability, Cloudflare Durable Objects can be integrated with Baselime, or can be retrieved with Cloudflare's GraphQL Analytics API. Read more | Socket.IO Yes The Socket.IO admin UI can be used to have an overview of the state of your Socket.IO deployment. |
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. | Cloudflare Durable Objects Yes Supports:
| Socket.IO No |
Quality of Service | |||
Scalability | Scalability is vital as it ensures the service can handle increased data load or users without compromising performance. | Cloudflare Durable Objects Durable Objects scale horizontally across many objects as needed. Each single object can handle up to 1,000 requests per second. Read more | Socket.IO No published metrics. Socket.IO servers don’t communicate between them, so you need a way to route events to all clients, even if they are connected to different servers. This is made possible by using adapters, of which the Redis adapter seems to be the most popular choice. |
Guaranteed message delivery | Ensures messages are never lost during transmission, even in the presence of network disruptions. | Cloudflare Durable Objects Partial Cloudflare Durable Objects requires integration with Cloudflare Queues to achieve guaranteed message delivery. Read more | Socket.IO Partial By default, Socket.IO provides an "at most once" guarantee of delivery. From the client side, you can achieve an at least once guarantee with acknowledgements and timeouts. |
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. | Cloudflare Durable Objects Partial Cloudflare Durable Objects requires integration with Cloudflare Queues to achieve guaranteed message ordering. Read more | Socket.IO |
Exactly-once message delivery | Guarantees that each message is processed exactly once, preventing data inconsistencies that can arise from duplicate processing or missing messages. | Cloudflare Durable Objects Partial Cloudflare Durable Objects requires integration with Cloudflare Queues to achieve exactly-once message delivery. Read more | Socket.IO No At least once or at most once only. |
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. | Cloudflare Durable Objects Cloudflare offers Business customers a 100% uptime SLA with service credits for any failures, while Enterprise customers have separate agreements. Read more | Socket.IO No It is a library, not a platform. |
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. | Cloudflare Durable Objects No | Socket.IO No |
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. | Cloudflare Durable Objects Yes Read more | Socket.IO 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. | Cloudflare Durable Objects Yes | Socket.IO No As Socket.IO is a library, the implementation of it dictates points of failure and congestion. |
Latency | Low latency is crucial for realtime apps as it ensures swift and efficient data transmissions, providing a smoother and more responsive user experience. | Cloudflare Durable Objects Unknown. | Socket.IO Unknown |
Security & compliance | |||
API key authentication | Simplifies the authentication code on trusted servers compared to requesting, managing, and refreshing tokens. | Cloudflare Durable Objects Yes | Socket.IO No |
Token-based authentication | Provides a means to securely authenticate user devices against your user management system. | Cloudflare Durable Objects No | Socket.IO No No native Token based auth. It is possible to use middlewares. |
Single Sign-On (SSO) authentication | SSO streamlines login processes, boosts security by minimizing password use, and meets compliance needs for secure data access management. | Cloudflare Durable Objects No | Socket.IO No No native SSO. It is possible to use middlewares. |
Rules for permissions and operations | Provides control over which users can subscribe and publish to certain channels. | Cloudflare Durable Objects No | Socket.IO No |
End-to-end encryption | Ensures that the data transmitted between the client and the API server remains confidential and secure while in transit. | Cloudflare Durable Objects Yes Data in transit is encrypted via TLS/SSL. | Socket.IO No |
Encryption at rest | Ensures data stored by the service is secure and compliant, while also mitigating the risks of a data breach. | Cloudflare Durable Objects Yes Cloudflare encrypts all users' data at rest using the AES-256 standard. | Socket.IO No |
Compliance | Compliance with regulations can impact your ability to meet legal obligations in your industry. | Cloudflare Durable Objects
| Socket.IO None. |
Alternatives to Cloudflare Durable Objects and Socket.IO
While both Cloudflare Durable Objects and Socket.IO 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 Cloudflare Durable Objects
Amazon API Gateway is a service for building, deploying, and managing APIs.
AWS AppSync enables developers to seamlessly handle and synchronize mobile app data in real-time across multiple devices and users.
Socket.IO is a library that provides realtime, bi-directional communication between clients and servers. It allows the management of connections, sending and receiving messages, and more.
Alternatives to Socket.IO
Azure SignalR is an Azure-hosted, fully managed realtime framework built on top of an open-source software library for Microsoft ASP.NET.
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.
Discover how Cloudflare Durable Objects and Socket.IO stack up against Ably
Ably is the definitive realtime experience platform of the internet. See how we compare to Cloudflare Durable Objects and Socket.IO on key dimensions such as core features, pricing, integrations, QoS, performance, and security and compliance.
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
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