Compare all

Pusher vs Rails AnyCable

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

Pusher logo

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
Rails AnyCable

What is Rails AnyCable?

Rails AnyCable is a robust and scalable drop-in alternative to the default ActionCable in Ruby on Rails applications. It is a WebSocket server that enables real-time bilateral communication.

Compare Pusher and Rails AnyCable

Let’s compare Pusher and Rails AnyCable, 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 Pusher and Rails AnyCable. The content was last updated on 1 Aug 2024 for Pusher and on 26 Sept 2024 for Rails AnyCable. 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 If you do find anything incorrect or out of date, then please contact us.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.

Pusher

Yes

Rails AnyCable

Yes

AnyCable uses Redis Pub/Sub to broadcast messages to WebSocket subscribers.

Read more
Chat capabilities

Accelerates the time to implement rich chat experiences with features such as read receipts, typing indicators, and more.

Pusher

No

Pusher has channels which enable read receipts, but no SDK, reactions, or read-receipts built in.

Read more
Rails AnyCable

Yes

Rails AnyCable supports chat capabilities through its broadcasting feature, which publishes messages from your application to connected clients.

Read more
Collaboration capabilities

Enables you to quickly integrate realtime collaborative features like live cursors, member location, avatar stacks, and component locking.

Pusher

No

Rails AnyCable

No

State sync capabilities

Enables realtime data synchronization across devices and users, ensuring a cohesive and up-to-date user experience.

Pusher

No

Pusher has 'cache channels', but this is just persist-last.

Read more
Rails AnyCable

Partial

AnyCable enables real-time WebSocket communication but lacks built-in state synchronization. To achieve state sync, it's common to pair AnyCable with tools like Rails' Active Record or other synchronization frameworks that manage data consistency.

Read more
Presence

Maintaining a view of which users are connected, and their associated metadata, enables their online status to be updated in realtime.

Pusher

Yes

Rails AnyCable

Yes

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.

Pusher

No

Rails AnyCable

No

Message interactions

Enables interaction with previously-sent messages, facilitating the implementation of features like message reactions and threads.

Pusher

No

Rails AnyCable

No

Message history

Enables clients to catch up on missed messages when inactive, ensuring a user doesn’t miss any important messages.

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.

Rails AnyCable

Yes

Message history is supported in AnyCable Pro. It is stored using Redis Streams.

Read more
Push notifications

Cross-platform push notifications make it possible to deliver important and timely messages to users even when they’re inactive.

Pusher

Yes

Pusher's product Beams is a cross-platform push notifications API.

Rails AnyCable

No

Message delta compression

Minimizes bandwidth and can reduce latency, particularly in scenarios where continuous updates are sent.

Pusher

No

Rails AnyCable

No

Programmatic management

Enables the automation of provisioning, management, and testing of service resources, simplifying integration with existing development workflows such as CI.

Pusher

No

Rails AnyCable

Yes

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.

Pusher

Partial

Only in 'sandbox', which is a free plan which gives you 200,000 messages and up to 100 concurrent connections per day.

Rails AnyCable

Yes

AnyCable's open-source (free) version offers several out-of-the-box features, including Hotwire support, JWT authentication, consistency, and Prometheus and StatsD instrumentation.

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.

Pusher

Pusher has free, flexible, and Enterprise plans based on number of messages and concurrent connections.

See more information
Rails AnyCable

AnyCable has an open-source, free version, a Pro version ($1490/yr), a managed version, and a consulting version. For more information, visit AnyCable's pricing page.

Integrations & interoperability
SDKs

Supporting multiple languages and platforms offers greater flexibility when building cross-platform realtime apps.

Pusher
  • Android (uses Java library)
  • AngularJS (uses JavaScript library)
  • iOS: Swift and Objective-C
  • Java
  • JavaScript
  • .NET
  • Unity
  • Flutter
  • React Native
Rails AnyCable
  • Ruby
  • JavaScript
Supported realtime protocols

Support for multiple protocols provides the flexibility to choose a protocol that best suits your project’s requirements.

Pusher
  • WebSockets
  • Fallback to Comet (XHR) and Long Polling for older browsers
Rails AnyCable
  • WebSockets
  • Server-Sent Events (SSEs)
  • Open Charge Point Protocol (OCPP)
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.

Pusher
  • Own serverless functions
Rails AnyCable

Supported with AnyCable's serverless library for NodeJS - more details here.

Streaming & queueing

Provides a dependable method to reroute messages from the service to third-party streams and queues for further processing.

Pusher

No

Rails AnyCable

Yes

Observability services

Enables realtime monitoring and troubleshooting by offering insights into service behavior directly in your observability platform of choice.

Pusher

Yes

Pusher provides Datadog and Librato integrations.

Rails AnyCable

No

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.

Pusher

No

Rails AnyCable

No

Quality of Service
Scalability

Scalability is vital as it ensures the service can handle increased data load or users without compromising performance.

Pusher

No scalability metrics published.

Rails AnyCable

No metrics available.

Guaranteed message delivery

Ensures messages are never lost during transmission, even in the presence of network disruptions.

Pusher

No

Rails AnyCable

Yes

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.

Pusher

No

Rails AnyCable

No

AnyCable leverages the ActionCable protocol which does not guarantee message ordering. This is due to concurrent broadcasts.

Exactly-once message delivery

Guarantees that each message is processed exactly once, preventing data inconsistencies that can arise from duplicate processing or missing messages.

Pusher

No

Rails AnyCable

Yes

With AnyCable, you can boost data consistency from at-most-once to at-least-once and exactly-once delivery.

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.

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
Rails AnyCable

No uptime SLA.

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.

Pusher

No

Rails AnyCable

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.

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.

Rails AnyCable

Partial

AnyCable itself does not support multi-region data replication, but with the available hosting options for AnyCable, such as AWS, you can achieve multi-region data replication.

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.

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.

Rails AnyCable

Yes

Latency

Low latency is crucial for realtime apps as it ensures swift and efficient data transmissions, providing a smoother and more responsive user experience.

Pusher

Not shared. Because apps exist in only one region, message latencies increase for clients the further they are from your chosen data center.

Rails AnyCable

Unknown.

Security & compliance
API key authentication

Simplifies the authentication code on trusted servers compared to requesting, managing, and refreshing tokens.

Pusher

Yes

Rails AnyCable

No

Token-based authentication

Provides a means to securely authenticate user devices against your user management system.

Pusher

Yes

Rails AnyCable

Yes

Supported with JWTS.

Single Sign-On (SSO) authentication

SSO streamlines login processes, boosts security by minimizing password use, and meets compliance needs for secure data access management.

Pusher

Partial

For GitHub and Google.

Rails AnyCable

No

Rules for permissions and operations

Provides control over which users can subscribe and publish to certain channels.

Pusher

Partial

Requires you to implement an endpoint they will call to check if operation is allowed.

Rails AnyCable

Partial

AnyCable doesn't have built-in features for managing permissions and operations. These are typically handled at the application level using Rails' authorization mechanisms or by integrating with other frameworks or services.

End-to-end encryption

Ensures that the data transmitted between the client and the API server remains confidential and secure while in transit.

Pusher

Yes

Rails AnyCable

No

Encryption at rest

Ensures data stored by the service is secure and compliant, while also mitigating the risks of a data breach.

Pusher

No

Rails AnyCable

No

Compliance

Compliance with regulations can impact your ability to meet legal obligations in your industry.

Pusher
  • GDPR compliant
Rails AnyCable
  • HIPAA

Alternatives to Pusher and Rails AnyCable

While both Pusher and Rails AnyCable 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 Pusher

Firebase logo

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

Pubnub logo

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

tech provider image

OneSignal is a customer engagement platform that offers push notifications, messages, and email sends for businesses to manage communication with their users.

See more alternatives to Pusher

Alternatives to Rails AnyCable

tech provider image

Rails ActionCable is a Ruby on Rails framework for realtime WebSockets communication.

Pubnub logo

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

Pusher logo

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

See more alternatives to Rails AnyCable

Discover how Pusher and Rails AnyCable stack up against Ably

Ably is the definitive realtime experience platform of the internet. See how we compare to Pusher and Rails AnyCable 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
  • 200 concurrent channels
  • 200 concurrent connections