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Cloud · head to head

Alibaba Cloud vs Soketi

Alibaba Cloud logo

Alibaba Cloud

Cloud

Asia's leading cloud computing provider

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Full reviewWebsite
Soketi logo

Soketi

Developer Tools

Self-hosted, Pusher-compatible WebSockets server with a stalled maintenance record

From
Free
Free plan
Yes
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Alibaba Cloud technical support is a separate subscription, from $19.99 a month for Developer up to $8,000 a month for Enterprise, with only Basic included; Soketi maintenance has effectively stalled: the maintainer has said time is severely limited, releases are infrequent, and the community has been discussing whether the project is abandoned, which means security fixes may not arrive.
  • They diverge on capability: Alibaba Cloud covers Elastic Compute Service, Soketi covers Pusher protocol compatibility.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Alibaba Cloud and Soketi actually diverge.

Attributes where Alibaba Cloud and Soketi differ
AttributeAlibaba CloudSoketi
Pricing modelusage-basedOpen source, no licence fee
PlatformsLinux, Windows, Api, CliLinux, macOS, Windows
CategoryCloudDeveloper Tools
Founded2009Unknown

Identical on both: starting price (Free), free tier (Yes), user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Alibaba Cloud

  • Elastic Compute Service
  • Object Storage Service
  • RDS Database
  • MaxCompute
  • Function Compute
  • CDN
  • Load Balancer
  • API Gateway

Only in Soketi

  • Pusher protocol compatibility
  • Presence and private channels
  • Horizontal scaling
  • App management backends
  • Webhooks
  • Prometheus metrics

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Alibaba Cloud

  • Cloud compute and storage with a strong footprint in China and Asia Pacificnot Soketi
  • Pay-as-you-go infrastructure without upfront commitmentnot Soketi
  • Committed-use discounts through savings plans for steady workloadsnot Soketi
  • CDN and data transfer packages for content deliverynot Soketi

Soketi

  • A Laravel application that already uses Echo and wants to stop paying a hosted realtime providernot Alibaba Cloud
  • Realtime notifications or presence indicators where data must not leave your own infrastructure for compliance reasonsnot Alibaba Cloud
  • A local or CI environment that needs a Pusher-compatible server without hitting a paid accountnot Alibaba Cloud
  • A high-connection-count application where hosted per-connection pricing has become the largest line in the infrastructure billnot Alibaba Cloud

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Alibaba Cloud

  • Technical support is a separate subscription, from $19.99 a month for Developer up to $8,000 a month for Enterprise, with only Basic included
  • Service prices are not shown as a rate card and route through a calculator or sales
  • Committed discounts require savings plans, reserved instances or capacity packages rather than being automatic

Soketi

  • Maintenance has effectively stalled: the maintainer has said time is severely limited, releases are infrequent, and the community has been discussing whether the project is abandoned, which means security fixes may not arrive.
  • Dependency drift on Node and uWebSockets.js will eventually force you to fork or migrate, and that cost is unbudgeted at the point you adopt it.
  • There is no commercial support to buy, so a production incident at three in the morning is entirely your problem with no escalation path.
  • Scaling beyond a single node needs Redis and careful configuration, and getting presence channels correct across nodes is a genuine source of subtle bugs.
  • It implements the Pusher protocol rather than tracking it, so any protocol feature Pusher adds later will not appear, and the compatibility guarantee slowly decays.

Pricing, plan by plan

Alibaba Cloud

Free
  • Free TrialFree
    • Free tier credits
    • ECS instances
    • Cloud storage
  • Pay-as-You-GoFree
    • Flexible billing
    • No commitments
    • Global reach

Soketi

Free
  • SoketiFree
    • MIT licensed
    • Unlimited connections subject to your own hardware
    • No vendor billing

Which should you pick?

Choose Alibaba Cloud if

  • You need elastic compute service.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, Windows, Api, Cli.
  • You also want object storage service.
Alibaba Cloud review

Choose Soketi if

  • You need pusher protocol compatibility.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, macOS, Windows.
  • You also want presence and private channels.
Soketi review

Questions people ask

Is Alibaba Cloud or Soketi better?
Neither clearly leads. Alibaba Cloud starts at Free and Soketi at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Alibaba Cloud or Soketi?
Alibaba Cloud starts at Free and Soketi at Free.
Does Alibaba Cloud or Soketi run on more platforms?
Alibaba Cloud runs on Linux, Windows, Api, Cli. Soketi runs on Linux, macOS, Windows.
Can I use Alibaba Cloud for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is Alibaba Cloud best used for?
Alibaba Cloud is most often used for cloud compute and storage with a strong footprint in china and asia pacific, pay-as-you-go infrastructure without upfront commitment, committed-use discounts through savings plans for steady workloads, cdn and data transfer packages for content delivery. Of those, cloud compute and storage with a strong footprint in china and asia pacific and pay-as-you-go infrastructure without upfront commitment are not what Soketi is typically brought in for.
What can Alibaba Cloud do that Soketi cannot?
Alibaba Cloud covers Elastic Compute Service, Object Storage Service, RDS Database, MaxCompute. Soketi covers Pusher protocol compatibility, Presence and private channels, Horizontal scaling, App management backends.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Soketi: Is Soketi still maintained?

Barely. The maintainer has stated that available time is very limited and releases have been sparse; treat it as community-maintained.

Soketi: Do I need to change my client code?

No. Pusher client SDKs and Laravel Echo work by changing the host, port and credentials.

Soketi: What does it cost?

Nothing in licence fees. It is MIT licensed; you pay for the server it runs on.

Soketi: What are people moving to?

Laravel Reverb for Laravel applications, and Sockudo, a Rust reimplementation, for others.

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