deepstream.io vs Nchan

	deepstream.io	Nchan
Time to "hello world" Reviewed by 3+ independent developers Ratings were given based on the average amount of time it takes to sign up to a new account and publish the first message.	4 / 5 5 = <30 min 4 = 30 min - 1 h 3 = 1-2 h 2 = 2-4 h 1 = 4+ h View code example	4 / 5 5 = <30 min 4 = 30 min - 1 h 3 = 1-2 h 2 = 2-4 h 1 = 4+ h View code example
Demos / Tutorials A selection of online demos and tutorials so you can test and see the code in action. Explore Ably's tutorials for our pub/sub messaging platform	Getting started with HTTP Handling Data Conflicts How to use RPCs for your request/response requirements View more deepstream.io demos & tutorials	Nchan getting started guide Nchan – A Concurrent Queuing PubSub Server Module for NGINX Realtime Web Apps with Nginx Nchan and Python
Documentation Reviewed by 3+ independent developers Explore Ably's documentation for our pub/sub messaging platform	4 / 5 Getting started guides / 5 Information architecture and developer journey / 5 API reference documentation / 5 Readability, design and navigation / 5 Quality of code / 5 Breadth and quality of tutorials / 5 The deepstream.io documentation is nicely written and features several components: GitHub, guides, tutorials, docs, blog, and miscellaneous info, such as FAQs. There’s a Getting Started guide using HTTP API, JavaScript Client API, and Java Client API, with code snippets throughout. The API reference is detailed for each SDK and information architecture is pretty nice. Most sections of the documentation are well cross-linked; however, the navigation experience could be improved, especially around the API reference – some links return 404. Also, some documentation pages need to be revamped. The documentation provides tutorials for most deepstream.io features but unfortunately, there’s no demos. The documentation for the core features (data-sync, records, auth, permissions, events, rpc, etc.) is well written, but could be more detailed.	4.17 / 5 Getting started guides / 5 Information architecture and developer journey / 5 API reference documentation / 5 Readability, design and navigation / 5 Quality of code / 5 Breadth and quality of tutorials / 5 W: “The documentation is extensive in details, easy to read and to navigate. There could perhaps be a tutorial putting it all together or more examples to follow.”. O: “The documentation is very detailed and rich in information, which is good but also leaves room for a more high level part as a first presentation”. P: “The getting started guide is easy to follow, once nchan and nginx have been installed. The underlying architecture and principles are well documented. It's easy to navigate between various content in the documentation, and examples are provided.
Dashboard or dev console Reviewed by 3+ independent developers Sign up for free and explore Ably's pub/sub messaging platform	4 / 5 Ease of use / 5 Stats and reports / 5 Functionality / 5 The deepstream.io dashboard might be a bit overwhelming to use or understand without documentation. The dashboard allows you to explore realtime data, configure permission, as well as view important metrics over time such as total messages used, active connections, cluster size, and CPU usage. The UI design is a bit outdated and could perhaps benefit from a revamp.	1 / 5 Ease of use / 5 Stats and reports / 5 Functionality / 5 N/A
SDKs Note: Only official SDKs were taken into account. Explore Ably's 25+ SDKs for our pub/sub messaging platform	3 SDKs Including: JavaScript Java Android	1 SDK Javascript
API structure Reviewed by 3+ independent developers	3 / 5 API consistency across SDKs / 5 Well structured / 5 Intuitive / 5 Simple / 5 deepstream.io tries to keep its APIs as consistent as possible across SDKs on the client side. However, the APIs are quite complex and counter-intuitive – too many methods make it not straightforward to perform operations in the same order. There’s a separate reference page for each API, which is not great. Developers need to take their time to go through the API reference to be able to use them properly. Documentation and tutorials are helpful in this regard.	4.25 / 5 API consistency across SDKs / 5 Well structured / 5 Intuitive / 5 Simple / 5 W: “There is only one SDK, and it only contains documentation in the form of comments in the code. However the API for Publishing/Subscribing to channels is very straightforward.” O: “The only SDK has a good structure and simple API but could include more information.”. P: “Subscribing to messages via Websockets, EventSource, Long-polling, Interval-poll is supported. Publishing messages is done via HTTP requests. Therefore it’s compatible with many platforms and languages. An npm package for node based applications exists.”

deepstream.io

Nchan

Getting started and developer experience

Time to "hello world"

Reviewed by 3+ independent developers

Ratings were given based on the average amount of time it takes to sign up to a new account and publish the first message.

4 / 5

5 = <30 min
4 = 30 min - 1 h
3 = 1-2 h
2 = 2-4 h
1 = 4+ h

View code example

4 / 5

5 = <30 min
4 = 30 min - 1 h
3 = 1-2 h
2 = 2-4 h
1 = 4+ h

View code example

Demos / Tutorials

A selection of online demos and tutorials so you can test and see the code in action.

Explore Ably's tutorials for our pub/sub messaging platform

Getting started with HTTP

Handling Data Conflicts

Nchan getting started guide

Nchan – A Concurrent Queuing PubSub Server Module for NGINX

Realtime Web Apps with Nginx Nchan and Python

Documentation

Reviewed by 3+ independent developers

Explore Ably's documentation for our pub/sub messaging platform

4 / 5

Getting started guides / 5

Information architecture and developer journey / 5

API reference documentation / 5

Readability, design and navigation / 5

Quality of code / 5

Breadth and quality of tutorials / 5

The deepstream.io documentation is nicely written and features several components: GitHub, guides, tutorials, docs, blog, and miscellaneous info, such as FAQs. There’s a Getting Started guide using HTTP API, JavaScript Client API, and Java Client API, with code snippets throughout. The API reference is detailed for each SDK and information architecture is pretty nice. Most sections of the documentation are well cross-linked; however, the navigation experience could be improved, especially around the API reference – some links return 404. Also, some documentation pages need to be revamped. The documentation provides tutorials for most deepstream.io features but unfortunately, there’s no demos. The documentation for the core features (data-sync, records, auth, permissions, events, rpc, etc.) is well written, but could be more detailed.

4.17 / 5

Getting started guides / 5

Information architecture and developer journey / 5

API reference documentation / 5

Readability, design and navigation / 5

Quality of code / 5

Breadth and quality of tutorials / 5

W: “The documentation is extensive in details, easy to read and to navigate. There could perhaps be a tutorial putting it all together or more examples to follow.”.

O: “The documentation is very detailed and rich in information, which is good but also leaves room for a more high level part as a first presentation”.

P: “The getting started guide is easy to follow, once nchan and nginx have been installed. The underlying architecture and principles are well documented. It's easy to navigate between various content in the documentation, and examples are provided.

Dashboard or dev console

Reviewed by 3+ independent developers

4 / 5

Ease of use / 5

Stats and reports / 5

Functionality / 5

The deepstream.io dashboard might be a bit overwhelming to use or understand without documentation. The dashboard allows you to explore realtime data, configure permission, as well as view important metrics over time such as total messages used, active connections, cluster size, and CPU usage.

The UI design is a bit outdated and could perhaps benefit from a revamp.

1 / 5

Ease of use / 5

Stats and reports / 5

Functionality / 5

N/A

SDKs

Note: Only official SDKs were taken into account.

Explore Ably's 25+ SDKs for our pub/sub messaging platform

3 SDKs

Including:

JavaScript
Java
Android

1 SDK

Javascript

API structure

Reviewed by 3+ independent developers

3 / 5

API consistency across SDKs / 5

Well structured / 5

Intuitive / 5

Simple / 5

deepstream.io tries to keep its APIs as consistent as possible across SDKs on the client side. However, the APIs are quite complex and counter-intuitive – too many methods make it not straightforward to perform operations in the same order. There’s a separate reference page for each API, which is not great. Developers need to take their time to go through the API reference to be able to use them properly. Documentation and tutorials are helpful in this regard.

4.25 / 5

API consistency across SDKs / 5

Well structured / 5

Intuitive / 5

Simple / 5

W: “There is only one SDK, and it only contains documentation in the form of comments in the code. However the API for Publishing/Subscribing to channels is very straightforward.”

O: “The only SDK has a good structure and simple API but could include more information.”.

P: “Subscribing to messages via Websockets, EventSource, Long-polling, Interval-poll is supported. Publishing messages is done via HTTP requests. Therefore it’s compatible with many platforms and languages. An npm package for node based applications exists.”

deepstream.io	Nchan
// Client A function eventCallback (data) { //callback for incoming events } //Subscribing to an event client.event.subscribe ('news/sports' , eventCallback) //Removing specific callback to the event client.event.unsubscribe ('news/sports' , eventCallback) //Removing all subscriptions to the event client.event.unsubscribe ('news/sports') // Client B client.event.emit ('news/sports' , 'football is happening' ) // Client B client.event.listen ('^news /.' , (match, response) => { console.log(match) // 'news/sports' if (/ if you want to provide /) { // start publishing data via ` client.event.emit(eventName, / data */)` response.accept() response.onStop(() => { // stop publishing data }) } else { response.reject() // let deepstream ask another provider } })	`// create subscriber require('browser-env')(); let NchanSubscriber = require("nchan"); var sub = new NchanSubscriber('ws://localhost/sub', { subscriber: 'websocket' }); sub.on("message", function(message) { console.log(message); }); sub.start(); //No SDK for publishing. //Using cURL: curl --request POST --data "Hello world" http:/localhost/pub`

deepstream.io

Nchan

"Hello world" code example

// Client A
function eventCallback (data) {
    //callback for incoming events 
}

//Subscribing to an event 
client.event.subscribe ('news/sports' , eventCallback)

//Removing specific callback to the event
client.event.unsubscribe ('news/sports' , eventCallback)

//Removing all subscriptions to the event
client.event.unsubscribe ('news/sports')

// Client B
client.event.emit ('news/sports' , 'football is happening' )

// Client B
client.event.listen ('^news /.*' , (match, response) => {
    console.log(match) // 'news/sports'
    if (/* if you want to provide */) { 
        // start publishing data via ` client.event.emit(eventName, /* data */)`
        response.accept()

        response.onStop(() => {
            // stop publishing data
        }) 
    } else {
        response.reject() // let deepstream ask another provider
    }
})

// create subscriber
require('browser-env')();
let NchanSubscriber = require("nchan");

var sub = new NchanSubscriber('ws://localhost/sub', { subscriber: 'websocket' });

sub.on("message", function(message) {
 console.log(message);
});

sub.start();

//No SDK for publishing.
//Using cURL:

curl --request POST --data "Hello world" http:/localhost/pub

	deepstream.io	Nchan
Realtime features
Pub/Sub messaging Pub/Sub is a design pattern that lets any number of publishers (producers) push messages to channels (also known as topics). Multiple subscribers (consumers) can subscribe to a channel to consume published messages. Explore Ably's pub/sub messaging implementation
Message queues A message queue is a form of asynchronous service-to-service communication. Messages are stored on a queue until they are processed. Note that each message is only consumed by one subscriber (consumer). Explore Ably's message queues implementation
Presence Presence enables you to track the online and offline status of devices and end-users in real time and to store their state. Essential for chat apps and multiplayer games. Explore Ably's presence implementation
Message history Message history provides a means to retrieve previously published messages. For this to be possible, message data must be stored (persisted) somewhere. Explore Ably's message history implementation
Connection state recovery (stream resume) In the case of unreliable network conditions, clients may suddenly disconnect.Connection state recovery ensures that when they reconnect, the data stream resumes exactly where it left off. Explore Ably' s connection state recovery implementation
Guaranteed message ordering Ordering ensures that messages are delivered to consumers in the same order that producers publish them. Explore Ably' s guaranteed message ordering implementation
Exactly-once semantics Exactly-once is a system-wide data integrity guarantee that ensures each message is delivered to consumers exactly-once. Explore Ably' s idempotent publishing implementation
Message delta compression Message delta compression enables you to only send the changes from the previous message to subscribers each time there’s an update, instead of the entire message. Useful for use cases where there is a significant degree of similarity between successive messages. Explore Ably' s message delta compression implementation
Native push notifications Native push notifications can be used to deliver messages even when clients are offline. Useful for geolocation updates or news alerts. Explore Ably's push notifications implementation
Webhooks Webhooks provide a mechanism to get messages and other types of events (such as clients entering or leaving channels) pushed to your servers over HTTP. Explore Ably's webhooks implementation	Limited deepstream.io only uses webhooks for user authentication.
Serverless functions A serverless function is essentially an isolated, single-purpose piece of code that is only executed when it’ triggered by an event. For example, you can use serverless functions to send a welcome message to clients when they become present on chat channels. Note that serverless functions are usually fully managed by cloud vendors. Explore Ably's serverless functions implementation
Built-in integrations Which popular services & systems are deepstream.io and Nchan integrated with? Explore Ably's library of integrations	Webhooks Custom IFTTT Zapier Serverless functions AWS Lambda Cloudflare Workers Google Cloud Functions Microsoft Azure Functions Streaming Apache Kafka Apache Pulsar Amazon Kinesis Amazon SQS RabbitMQ AMQP	Webhooks Custom IFTTT Zapier Serverless functions AWS Lambda Cloudflare Workers Google Cloud Functions Microsoft Azure Functions Streaming Apache Kafka Apache Pulsar Amazon Kinesis Amazon SQS RabbitMQ AMQP
Known limits and constraints Find out practical limits, such as the maximum message size, or the maximum number of concurrent connections. Explore the practical limits of the Ably pub/sub messaging platform	Publisher throughput 160.000-200.000 updates per second for Single Node 4,000,000,000 messages per hour for Cluster Maximum message size 1MB Maximum number of topics Unknown Maximum number of connections 250 for Single Node 750 for Cluster	Publisher throughput Unknown Maximum message size Unknown Maximum number of topics Unknown Maximum number of connections 300,000 concurrent connections

Supported development platforms, languages, open protocols and cloud models
Development platforms & operating systems Which popular development platforms and operating systems do deepstream.io and Nchan support via official SDKs? Explore the development platforms supported by Ably	Android Java / JVM iOS macOS iPadOS tvOS watchOS Mono .NET	Android Java / JVM iOS macOS iPadOS tvOS watchOS Mono .NET
Languages Which popular programming languages do deepstream.io and Nchan support via offical SDKs? Explore the programming languages supported by Ably	JavaScript Node.js TypeScript Java Objective-C Swift Go PHP Python Ruby Flutter Clojure Scala	JavaScript Node.js TypeScript Java Objective-C Swift Go PHP Python Ruby Flutter Clojure Scala
Open protocols Which popular open protocols do deepstream.io and Nchan support? Explore the open protocols supported by Ably	WebSocket HTTP AMQP MQTT STOMP SSE Webhooks	WebSocket HTTP AMQP MQTT STOMP SSE Webhooks
Cloud models Which popular cloud models do deepstream.io and Nchan support?	Self-hosted Cloud-managed Serverless Globally-distributed	Self-hosted Cloud-managed Serverless Globally-distributed

Global and reliable edge service
Edge messaging network with latency-based routing Latency-based routing ensures that clients are always routed to the nearest datacenter and point of presence. Explore Ably's routing mechanism that mitigates network and DNS issues		N/A
Multi-region data replication (message durability) Multi-region data replication (storage) protects against single points of failure and ensures message data durability. Learn how Ably ensures message durability	Limited deepstream.io stores data in a combination of storage and cache layers for distribution across multiple nodes. However this platform also relies on shared devices such as a Redis for a message bus which itself (Redis layer) might become a point of failure and congestion.	N/A
Uptime SLAs Here’s what the most common SLAs amount to in terms of downtime over a calendar year: 99.999% SLA = 5m 15s downtime per year 99.99% SLA = 52m 35s downtime per year 99.95% SLA = 4h 22m 58s downtime per year 99.9% SLA = 8h 45m 56s downtime per year 99% SLA = 3d 15h 39m 29s downtime per year Source: https://uptime.is/	No specific uptime SLA	N/A
Quality of Service What QoS guarantees do deepstream.io and Nchan provide natively? Explore Ably's availability and uptime guarantees for our pub/sub messaging platform	Multi-region data replication (storage) Exactly-once semantics Guaranteed message ordering Connection state recovery (stream resume)	Multi-region data replication (storage) Exactly-once semantics Guaranteed message ordering Connection state recovery (stream resume)

Security
API key authentication The simplest way to authenticate. Involves using private API keys that you can usually create and edit via a dashboard. Recommended to be used server-side, as private API keys shouldn’t be shared with untrusted parties. Explore Ably's implementation of API key authentication		N/A
Token-based authentication Which popular token-based authentication mechanisms do deepstream.io and Nchan support? Note that token-based authentication is usually the recommended strategy on the client-side as it provides more fine-grained access control and limits the risk of credentials being compromised. Explore Ably's implementation of token-based authentication	Ephemeral tokens JWTs	Ephemeral tokens JWTs
Configurable rules and permissions Which types of configurable rules and permissions do deepstream.io and Nchan support? Explore Ably's configurable rules and permissions	API keys rules and permissions Operation rules and permissions Admin rights	API keys rules and permissions Operation rules and permissions Admin rights
Message encryption Which types of message encryption do deepstream.io and Nchan support? Explore Ably's message encryption mechanisms	Encrypted at rest Encrypted in transit Message payload encryption	Encrypted at rest Encrypted in transit Message payload encryption
Formal certifications Which formal certifications are deepstream.io and Nchan compliant with? Explore Ably's security and compliance for our pub/sub messaging platform	SOC 2 TYPE I SOC 2 Type II HIPAA EU GDPR	SOC 2 TYPE I SOC 2 Type II HIPAA EU GDPR

Pricing & Support
Free package What do the free packages offered by deepstream.io and Nchan consist of? Explore Ably's free package for our pub/sub messaging platform	N/A	N/A
Pricing model How are the deepstream.io and Nchan pricing models calculated? Explore Ably's pricing model for our pub/sub messaging platform	deepstream.io pricing is usage-based and calculated per hour. $0.052 per hour for a six-instance cluster on AWS EC2 t2.medium $0.008 per hour for a single node on cache.t2.medium It’s unclear how pricing is calculated for the Enterprise package.	N/A
Enterprise package What benefits do the deepstream.io and Nchan enterprise packages offer? Explore Ably's enterprise package for our pub/sub messaging platform	No Enterprise package is explicitly specified. However, it can be obtained by contacting the vendor directly.	N/A
Community Reviewed by 3+ independent developers Explore Ably's community support channel for our pub/sub messaging platform	5 / 5 Presence on multiple channels / 5 Size and activity / 5 deepstream.io has a strong community presence on various channels, such as Stack Overflow, Slack, GitHub, and Twitter. Their community is active, approachable, and helpful, and generates a lot of content: 110 repositories, 6.8K stars, and 383 forks on GitHub. Similarly, there are over 100 questions on Stack Overflow, 690 users on Slack and more than 1000 followers on Twitter. There are no events, and no community presence on Discourse, and Gitter.	2.50 / 5 Presence on multiple channels / 5 Size and activity / 5 “Nchan has 2.7k stars on GitHub and seems to be somewhat active. Nchan is listed as an NGINX module on the NGINX website. ” O: “The community is quite active on GitHub and there are a few related questions on StackOverflow. I could not find any other channels.” P: “The community mostly lives on GitHub, where it has 2.7k stars. Latest release was in March 2020. There seems to be limited development of the project currently. Some activity exists in the GitHub issues page“
Support What types of support options and response times do deepstream.io and Nchan offer? Explore Ably's support options for our pub/sub messaging platform	General Support Options Email, technical documentation, community support. Response time < 24 hours for non-technical queries < 1 hour for production system down incident (only applies to Enterprise support package)	N/A

Pricing & Support

Free package

What do the free packages offered by deepstream.io and Nchan consist of?

Explore Ably's free package for our pub/sub messaging platform

N/A

Pricing model

How are the deepstream.io and Nchan pricing models calculated?

Explore Ably's pricing model for our pub/sub messaging platform

deepstream.io pricing is usage-based and calculated per hour.

$0.052 per hour for a six-instance cluster on AWS EC2 t2.medium

$0.008 per hour for a single node on cache.t2.medium

It’s unclear how pricing is calculated for the Enterprise package.

N/A

Enterprise package

What benefits do the deepstream.io and Nchan enterprise packages offer?

Explore Ably's enterprise package for our pub/sub messaging platform

No Enterprise package is explicitly specified. However, it can be obtained by contacting the vendor directly.

N/A

Community

Reviewed by 3+ independent developers

Explore Ably's community support channel for our pub/sub messaging platform

5 / 5

Presence on multiple channels / 5

Size and activity / 5

deepstream.io has a strong community presence on various channels, such as Stack Overflow, Slack, GitHub, and Twitter. Their community is active, approachable, and helpful, and generates a lot of content: 110 repositories, 6.8K stars, and 383 forks on GitHub. Similarly, there are over 100 questions on Stack Overflow, 690 users on Slack and more than 1000 followers on Twitter. There are no events, and no community presence on Discourse, and Gitter.

2.50 / 5

Presence on multiple channels / 5

Size and activity / 5

“Nchan has 2.7k stars on GitHub and seems to be somewhat active. Nchan is listed as an NGINX module on the NGINX website. ”

O: “The community is quite active on GitHub and there are a few related questions on StackOverflow. I could not find any other channels.”

P: “The community mostly lives on GitHub, where it has 2.7k stars. Latest release was in March 2020. There seems to be limited development of the project currently. Some activity exists in the GitHub issues page“

Support

What types of support options and response times do deepstream.io and Nchan offer?

Explore Ably's support options for our pub/sub messaging platform

General Support Options

Email, technical documentation, community support.

Response time

< 24 hours for non-technical queries

< 1 hour for production system down incident (only applies to Enterprise support package)

N/A

Disclaimer: The information presented for deepstream.io was last updated on 28 February 2021 and on 2 September 2020 for Nchan. It is possible that some details may now be out of date. If you think that’s the case, please let us know so we can update them. In any case, you should not rely solely on the information presented here and must check with each provider before deciding to integrate or buy any of these two solutions.

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