Is Apigee or Pusher better?

Neither clearly leads. Apigee starts at $500/monthly and Pusher at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.

Which is cheaper, Apigee or Pusher?

Pusher has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at $500/monthly for Apigee and Free for Pusher.

Does Apigee or Pusher run on more platforms?

Apigee runs on Cloud, Hybrid, On-premises. Pusher runs on web, ios, android, api.

Can I use Pusher for free?

Yes. Pusher has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Apigee starts at $500/monthly.

What is Apigee best used for?

Apigee is most often used for publishing, securing and versioning apis for an enterprise api program, monetizing apis and running a developer portal, analyzing api traffic and defending apis against bots and abuse. Of those, publishing, securing and versioning apis for an enterprise api program and monetizing apis and running a developer portal are not what Pusher is typically brought in for.

What can Apigee do that Pusher cannot?

Apigee covers API Gateway, API Analytics, Developer Portal, Google Cloud services. Pusher covers Pub/sub channels, Presence channels, Client libraries, Webhooks.

Software · head to head

Apigee vs Pusher

Apigee

Software

API management platform for designing, securing, and scaling APIs

From: $500/monthly
Rated: -

Full review Website

Pusher

Software

Realtime messaging API for building live features into apps

From: Free
Rated: -

Full review Website

The short version

Only Pusher has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
Each has a real cost: Apigee the free evaluation is a sandbox limited to 60 days; Pusher the free Sandbox plan is capped at 100 concurrent connections, which is quickly outgrown by production apps.
They diverge on capability: Apigee covers API Gateway, Pusher covers Pub/sub channels.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Apigee and Pusher actually diverge.

Attributes where Apigee and Pusher differ
Attribute	Apigee	Pusher
Starting price	$500/monthly	Free
Pricing model	subscription	freemium
Free tier	No	Yes
Platforms	Cloud, Hybrid, On-premises	web, ios, android, api
Founded	2006	Unknown

Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated), category (Unknown).

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 Apigee

API Gateway
API Analytics
Developer Portal
Google Cloud services
Azure
AWS
Okta
Cloud support

Only in Pusher

Pub/sub channels
Presence channels
Client libraries
Webhooks
24/7 monitoring
Priority support

What people use each for

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

Apigee

Publishing, securing and versioning APIs for an enterprise API programnot Pusher
Monetizing APIs and running a developer portalnot Pusher
Analyzing API traffic and defending APIs against bots and abusenot Pusher

Pusher

Adding live chat to a web or mobile appnot Apigee
Showing realtime presence of online usersnot Apigee
Pushing live notifications or dashboard updatesnot Apigee
Building collaborative features without managing WebSocket serversnot Apigee

Where each one falls short

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

Apigee

The free evaluation is a sandbox limited to 60 days
Pay-as-you-go has no SLA available at all
Pay-as-you-go bills environments separately from API calls, with a Base environment costing $365 per month per region
The Base environment is capped at 50 QPS with an SLA of up to 99%
Standard API Proxy calls are billed at $20 per 1M calls up to 50M, and Extensible API Proxy calls at $100 per 1M calls up to 50M
API Analytics is a paid add-on at $20 per 1M API calls and cannot be bought on a Base environment
Advanced API Security is a paid add-on at $350 per 1M API calls and cannot be bought on a Base environment
Monetization is unavailable on pay-as-you-go and requires a subscription tier
Additional API proxy deployments beyond those included cost $0.04 per hour per region on a Comprehensive environment
Subscription tiers Standard, Enterprise and Enterprise Plus are quote only with no published price
Google Cloud networking charges for IP addresses, data transfer out and forwarding rules are billed on top of Apigee usage

Pusher

The free Sandbox plan is capped at 100 concurrent connections, which is quickly outgrown by production apps.
Pricing jumps sharply between tiers (e.g. $49 to $99 to $299), leaving few options for teams with moderate but growing usage.
Priority support with faster response times costs an additional $3,000/month on top of plan pricing.

Pricing, plan by plan

Apigee

$500/monthly

Starter$500/monthly
- API gateway
- Analytics
- Developer portal
Professional$2500/monthly
- Advanced security
- Traffic management
- Monetization
Enterprise$undefined/monthly
- Custom deployment
- SLA
- Dedicated support

Pusher

Free

SandboxFree
- 200k messages/day
- 100 concurrent connections
- Standard support
Startup$49/month
- 1M messages/day
- 500 concurrent connections
Pro$99/month
- 4M messages/day
- 2,000 concurrent connections
Business$299/month
- 10M messages/day
- 5,000 concurrent connections
- Premium support

Which should you pick?

Choose Apigee if

You need api gateway.
You work on Cloud, Hybrid, On-premises.
You also want api analytics.

Apigee review

Choose Pusher if

You need pub/sub channels.
You want to start without paying.
You work on web, ios, android, api.
You also want presence channels.

Pusher review

Questions people ask

Is Apigee or Pusher better?: Neither clearly leads. Apigee starts at $500/monthly and Pusher at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Apigee or Pusher?: Pusher has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at $500/monthly for Apigee and Free for Pusher.
Does Apigee or Pusher run on more platforms?: Apigee runs on Cloud, Hybrid, On-premises. Pusher runs on web, ios, android, api.
Can I use Pusher for free?: Yes. Pusher has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Apigee starts at $500/monthly.
What is Apigee best used for?: Apigee is most often used for publishing, securing and versioning apis for an enterprise api program, monetizing apis and running a developer portal, analyzing api traffic and defending apis against bots and abuse. Of those, publishing, securing and versioning apis for an enterprise api program and monetizing apis and running a developer portal are not what Pusher is typically brought in for.
What can Apigee do that Pusher cannot?: Apigee covers API Gateway, API Analytics, Developer Portal, Google Cloud services. Pusher covers Pub/sub channels, Presence channels, Client libraries, Webhooks.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Pusher: What does Pusher cost?

Pusher Channels offers a free Sandbox plan (200k messages/day, 100 connections) and paid plans starting at $49/month for Startup, scaling up through Pro, Business, and several higher tiers up to $1,199/month, plus custom Enterprise pricing.

Source

Pusher: Can I change or cancel my plan?

Yes, customers can log into the dashboard and adjust their plan at any time, including upgrading, downgrading, or cancelling.

Source

Pusher: How is usage metered?

Usage is measured by concurrent connections and messages per day; a message counts both the publish and each delivery, so publishing one message to 50 subscribers counts as 51 messages.

Source

Apigee vs Pusher

Apigee

Pusher

The short version

Where they differ

What each one covers

Only in Apigee

Only in Pusher

What people use each for

Apigee

Pusher

Where each one falls short

Apigee

Pusher

Pricing, plan by plan

Apigee

Pusher

Which should you pick?

Choose Apigee if

Choose Pusher if

Questions people ask

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Related pages

More on Apigee

More on Pusher

Keep looking

Other head to heads