Rails ActionCable vs SignalR
Discover how Rails ActionCable compares to SignalR, and understand which is right for your use case, based on dimensions such as core features, pricing, reliability, and scalability.
What is Rails ActionCable?
Rails Action Cable is a framework built into Ruby on Rails that integrates WebSockets for real-time communication, allowing developers to create interactive applications.
Suitable for:
- Small apps
- Rails apps
- Simple real-time use cases
- Interactive features
Not suitable for:
- Large-scale apps
- Multi-protocol needs
- High scalability requirements
- Non-Rails apps
Pros:
- Easy to integrate
- Uses Rails conventions
- Quick setup
- Good for small apps
Cons:
- Limited scalability
- Lacks advanced features
- Only supports WebSockets
- Not for large apps
- Limited protocols
What is SignalR?
SignalR is an open-source library that simplifies adding real-time web functionality to apps. It is integrated into the ASP.NET Core web development stack and provides a mechanism for two-way remote procedure calls between client and server.
Suitable for:
- Apps that require high frequency updates from the server, like gaming, social networks, voting, auction, maps, and GPS apps.
- Dashboards and monitoring apps
- Collaborative apps
- Apps that require notifications
Not suitable for:
-Stateless applications -Apps with high scalability requirements -Apps with high throughput requirements
Pros:
- Open source
- Free to use
Cons:
- Self-hosted
- Complex to manage
Compare Rails ActionCable and SignalR
Let’s compare Rails ActionCable and SignalR, 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 Rails ActionCable and SignalR. The content was last updated on 10 Oct 2024 for Rails ActionCable and on 26 Sept 2024 for SignalR. 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 If you do find anything incorrect or out of date, then please contact us.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. | Rails ActionCable Partial Supports basic pub/sub via channels. | SignalR Partial The SignalR SDKs do not provide a topic abstraction out of the box, but they provide a "groups" abstraction which lets you implement something similar. Read more |
Chat capabilities | Accelerates the time to implement rich chat experiences with features such as read receipts, typing indicators, and more. | Rails ActionCable Partial Rails ActionCable does not have an out-of-the box chat solution, but provides the building blocks for a basic chat implementation, and several resources for self-building specific chat use cases. Read more | SignalR |
Collaboration capabilities | Enables you to quickly integrate realtime collaborative features like live cursors, member location, avatar stacks, and component locking. | Rails ActionCable Partial Rails ActionCable provides basic support, but lacks advanced features like live cursors or component locking. | SignalR No |
State sync capabilities | Enables realtime data synchronization across devices and users, ensuring a cohesive and up-to-date user experience. | Rails ActionCable Partial Rails ActionCable offers basic state sync capabilities, but it does not offer advanced tools to ensure continued synchronization between clients and devices. | SignalR No |
Presence | Maintaining a view of which users are connected, and their associated metadata, enables their online status to be updated in realtime. | Rails ActionCable Partial Rails ActionCable doesn't offer presence out of the box, but can support presence when custom built on a user appearance channel. Read more | SignalR Yes 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. | Rails ActionCable No | SignalR No |
Message interactions | Enables interaction with previously-sent messages, facilitating the implementation of features like message reactions and threads. | Rails ActionCable Partial Rails ActionCable supports basic message interactions like broadcasting but advanced features like reactions require custom code. | SignalR No |
Message history | Enables clients to catch up on missed messages when inactive, ensuring a user doesn’t miss any important messages. | Rails ActionCable No | SignalR No |
Push notifications | Cross-platform push notifications make it possible to deliver important and timely messages to users even when they’re inactive. | Rails ActionCable No | SignalR No Microsoft Azure Web PubSub has no native push notification functionality. Microsoft has a separate service for this - Azure Notification Hubs. Read more |
Message delta compression | Minimizes bandwidth and can reduce latency, particularly in scenarios where continuous updates are sent. | Rails ActionCable No | SignalR No |
Programmatic management | Enables the automation of provisioning, management, and testing of service resources, simplifying integration with existing development workflows such as CI. | Rails ActionCable Yes Rails ActionCable can be managed through Rails. | SignalR No |
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. | Rails ActionCable Yes The Rails framework, including Rails ActionCable, is completely free and open-source. | SignalR Yes Self-hosted and free. |
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. | Rails ActionCable Completely free, no paid plans. | SignalR N/A (self-hosted) |
Integrations & interoperability | |||
SDKs | Supporting multiple languages and platforms offers greater flexibility when building cross-platform realtime apps. | Rails ActionCable
| SignalR Client SDKs:
Server SDKs:
|
Supported realtime protocols | Support for multiple protocols provides the flexibility to choose a protocol that best suits your project’s requirements. | Rails ActionCable
| SignalR
|
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. | Rails ActionCable None. | SignalR None. |
Streaming & queueing | Provides a dependable method to reroute messages from the service to third-party streams and queues for further processing. | Rails ActionCable No | SignalR No |
Observability services | Enables realtime monitoring and troubleshooting by offering insights into service behavior directly in your observability platform of choice. | Rails ActionCable No | SignalR Partial SignalR is integrated with ASP.net Core metrics, and these can be reported to a monitoring system at regular intervals. Read more |
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. | Rails ActionCable No | SignalR No Self-hosted, so you will have to implement your own. |
Quality of Service | |||
Scalability | Scalability is vital as it ensures the service can handle increased data load or users without compromising performance. | Rails ActionCable No metrics available. | SignalR N/A (self-hosted) |
Guaranteed message delivery | Ensures messages are never lost during transmission, even in the presence of network disruptions. | Rails ActionCable No | SignalR No |
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. | Rails ActionCable No | SignalR No |
Exactly-once message delivery | Guarantees that each message is processed exactly once, preventing data inconsistencies that can arise from duplicate processing or missing messages. | Rails ActionCable No | SignalR No |
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. | Rails ActionCable No uptime SLA. | SignalR N/A |
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. | Rails ActionCable No | SignalR 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. | Rails ActionCable No | SignalR 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. | Rails ActionCable No | SignalR No |
Latency | Low latency is crucial for realtime apps as it ensures swift and efficient data transmissions, providing a smoother and more responsive user experience. | Rails ActionCable Unknown. | SignalR N/A (self-hosted) |
Security & compliance | |||
API key authentication | Simplifies the authentication code on trusted servers compared to requesting, managing, and refreshing tokens. | Rails ActionCable No | SignalR No |
Token-based authentication | Provides a means to securely authenticate user devices against your user management system. | Rails ActionCable No | SignalR |
Single Sign-On (SSO) authentication | SSO streamlines login processes, boosts security by minimizing password use, and meets compliance needs for secure data access management. | Rails ActionCable No | SignalR |
Rules for permissions and operations | Provides control over which users can subscribe and publish to certain channels. | Rails ActionCable Yes | SignalR Yes You can restrict access to hubs and hub methods to users matching specific authorization policies. Read more |
End-to-end encryption | Ensures that the data transmitted between the client and the API server remains confidential and secure while in transit. | Rails ActionCable No | SignalR No You would need to implement this yourself. |
Encryption at rest | Ensures data stored by the service is secure and compliant, while also mitigating the risks of a data breach. | Rails ActionCable No | SignalR No |
Compliance | Compliance with regulations can impact your ability to meet legal obligations in your industry. | Rails ActionCable None. | SignalR N/A |
Alternatives to Rails ActionCable and SignalR
While both Rails ActionCable and SignalR 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 Rails ActionCable
Pusher is a first-generation pub/sub messaging service that provides bi-directional hosted APIs for adding realtime features to applications.
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.
PubNub is a developer API platform that powers the realtime infrastructure in apps to build engaging Virtual Spaces where online communities can connect.
Alternatives to SignalR
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.
Pusher is a first-generation pub/sub messaging service that provides bi-directional hosted APIs for adding realtime features to applications.
Firebase Realtime Database is a cloud-hosted database by Google, allowing developers to build realtime applications for web and mobile.
Discover how Rails ActionCable and SignalR stack up against Ably
Ably is the definitive realtime experience platform of the internet. See how we compare to Rails ActionCable and SignalR on key dimensions such as core features, pricing, integrations, QoS, performance, and security and compliance.
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