OSS Alts.

Search alternatives
Realtime Messaging 3 alternatives tracked

Open-source alternatives to Pusher

Pusher is a hosted WebSocket API for adding real-time features to web and mobile apps — live notifications, chat, collaborative cursors, live dashboards — without managing WebSocket server infrastructure. Developers connect via Pusher's client SDK and send events via the server API. Pricing scales with concurrent connections and monthly messages.

Last reviewed

Share: X Reddit HN LinkedIn

The alternatives

centrifugo

★ 10,235 Go Apache-2.0

Scalable real-time messaging server in a language-agnostic way. Self-hosted alternative to Pubnub, Pusher, Ably, socket.io, Phoenix.PubSub, SignalR. Set up once and forever.

centrifugal/centrifugo Updated 2026-05-02

soketi

★ 5,595 TypeScript AGPL-3.0

Next-gen, Pusher-compatible, open-source WebSockets server. Simple, fast, and resilient. 📣

soketi/soketi Updated 2025-03-03

reverb

★ 1,553 PHP MIT

Laravel Reverb provides a real-time WebSocket communication backend for Laravel applications.

laravel/reverb Updated 2026-05-05

Comparison notes

Soketi is a Pusher-compatible OSS WebSocket server (TypeScript, AGPL) that implements the Pusher protocol — existing Pusher SDK code works without changes against a Soketi backend. Centrifugo (Apache 2.0, Go) is a more scalable OSS real-time server with its own protocol plus Pusher compatibility. Laravel Reverb is Pusher-compatible for Laravel apps. The main gap: Pusher manages WebSocket server scaling, connection limits, and infrastructure availability; self-hosted solutions require managing connection limits and scaling Soketi/Centrifugo horizontally for high-concurrency use cases.

Migration tips

  • Deploy Soketi on a VPS (a single Docker container handles low-to-moderate concurrency)
  • Update your server-side Pusher SDK configuration to point to your Soketi host instead of Pusher's endpoints
  • Your client-side Pusher JavaScript/native SDK code requires only endpoint configuration changes — the protocol is compatible
  • Set SOKETI_APP_ID, SOKETI_APP_KEY, and SOKETI_APP_SECRET in your Soketi environment matching your server-side config
  • For high concurrency, configure Redis adapter for Soketi to support multi-node horizontal scaling

FAQ

Can I fully replace Pusher with an OSS tool?

Feature parity varies. Most OSS alternatives cover 70-90% of core workflows, but may lack polish, integrations, or specialized features. Pilot the alternative with a subset of your team before fully committing.

What's the cost of self-hosting?

Plan for ~$5-50/month in VPS costs (DigitalOcean, Hetzner, etc.) plus 2-8 hours/month in maintenance. For a team of 20+, self-hosting usually breaks even against SaaS pricing within 6-12 months.

Which alternative should I pick?

Sort by GitHub stars (a proxy for community health), check the last-pushed date (avoid unmaintained projects), and read recent issues to gauge responsiveness.