Switchboard vs the alternatives
Realtime messaging without Pusher or PubNub invoices
Pusher, Ably, and PubNub are the big three for realtime — excellent products, priced per connection and per message. Centrifugo is the open-source heavyweight. Switchboard wraps Centrifugo with a REST gateway, shared-secret auth, and asynchronous message recording to 10+ backends — so your chat, notifications, and live dashboards run on your cluster, with every message auditable in your database.
The dimensions that matter
| Option | Pricing model | Scaling | Data residency | Customization | Lock-in |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Switchboard Self-hosted | Flat per-container licence | Centrifugo + workers on Kubernetes | Your VPC + your DB | Recording scope, notification drivers | Low — Centrifugo is OSS |
| Pusher SaaS | Per-connection + per-message | Managed | Pusher | API | Medium |
| Ably SaaS | Per-message + per-connection | Managed global | Ably | Rich API | Medium |
| PubNub SaaS | Per-transaction | Managed global | PubNub | Functions | Medium |
What each alternative is good at — and where it falls short
Every tool here is excellent. Read the strengths. Then read where it stops fitting your situation.
Pusher
SaaSStrength
Dead-simple realtime messaging API, huge language SDK coverage, quick to prototype.
Where it falls short
Per-connection + per-message pricing. Your messages flow through Pusher. Limited control over recording and archival.
Pricing model
Per-connection + per-message tiers.
Ably
SaaSStrength
Global realtime network with guaranteed message delivery, presence, history, push.
Where it falls short
Per-message + per-connection pricing. Enterprise tiers for advanced reliability. Your traffic flows through Ably.
Pricing model
Per-message + per-connection + per-channel tiers.
PubNub
SaaSStrength
Global realtime network at scale — used in gaming, collaboration, and live events.
Where it falls short
Per-transaction pricing that rewards predictable usage. Your infrastructure depends on PubNub's network. Recording to your own database means custom glue.
Pricing model
Per-transaction + function calls + storage.
If realtime messaging is a product feature — not a sometimes-need — Switchboard is Centrifugo plus audit recording, ready on your cluster.
The principles behind self-hosting
These apply across every comparison on this site — not just this one.
Flat-rate cost model
A self-hosted container costs the same whether it processes 100 jobs or 10 million. SaaS and cloud alternatives meter per request, minute, or connection — costs scale linearly with usage.
Your data stays in your VPC
No cross-border data transfer. No vendor data-processing agreements. Compliance, residency, and audit are simpler when data never leaves.
No vendor lock-in
Every service speaks open standards — MQTT 5, OpenAPI, OCI Distribution, Redis protocol, S3 API. Migrating away is a DNS change, not a rewrite.
One contract across your stack
One platform contract. Once your team learns one service, onboarding the next is an afternoon. Compare to mastering AWS IoT and Document Intelligence and MediaConvert separately.
Scale on the boxes you already have
Every service is stateless HTTP plus a worker pool. Helm charts ship with every image. If you have a Kubernetes cluster, you already have the platform.
Extend without asking permission
Need a custom task, a new notification driver, or a bespoke integration? The source is yours to modify. No vendor roadmap. No feature request backlog.
Try Switchboard. See the difference.
One Docker container. One live demo. Five minutes to see it running on your stack.