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Cloud · head to head

Beam Cloud vs Soketi

Beam Cloud logo

Beam Cloud

Cloud

Serverless GPU computing with sub-second cold starts and multi-cloud support

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: Beam Cloud free tier limited to $30 monthly credits with 5 GPU containers; 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: Beam Cloud covers Sub-second cold starts, Soketi covers Pusher protocol compatibility.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

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

Attributes where Beam Cloud and Soketi differ
AttributeBeam CloudSoketi
Pricing modelFreemium with pay-per-millisecond usage chargesOpen source, no licence fee
PlatformsCloud, PythonLinux, macOS, Windows
CategoryCloudDeveloper Tools

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 Beam Cloud

  • Sub-second cold starts
  • Inference endpoints
  • Task queues
  • Sandboxes
  • Multi-cloud support
  • Python SDK
  • Global distribution
  • Massive parallelization

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.

Beam Cloud

  • Deploying ML models with minimal latency and setup timenot Soketi
  • Large-scale batch processing across thousands of concurrent tasksnot Soketi
  • Cost-effective inference serving with bursty workloadsnot Soketi
  • Multi-cloud AI deployments with global low-latency accessnot Soketi
  • Serverless AI development for rapid experimentationnot Soketi

Soketi

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

Where each one falls short

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

Beam Cloud

  • Free tier limited to $30 monthly credits with 5 GPU containers
  • Massive parallelization complexity may require DevOps expertise
  • Per-millisecond pricing model requires careful cost monitoring
  • Smaller team relative to established cloud providers

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

Beam Cloud

Free
  • DeveloperFree
    • $30 monthly free credits
    • 5 GPU containers, 30 CPU containers
    • Community support
  • Team$89/month
    • $30 monthly free credits included
    • 50 GPU containers, 1,000 CPU containers
    • 3 seats included, $25 per additional
  • Growth$undefined/custom
    • 1,000+ GPU containers
    • Unlimited CPU containers
    • Unlimited seats
  • Serverless GPUs$undefined/per-millisecond
    • RTX 4090: $0.00019/sec

Soketi

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

Which should you pick?

Choose Beam Cloud if

  • You need sub-second cold starts.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Cloud, Python.
  • You also want inference endpoints.
Beam 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 Beam Cloud or Soketi better?
Neither clearly leads. Beam 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, Beam Cloud or Soketi?
Beam Cloud starts at Free and Soketi at Free.
Does Beam Cloud or Soketi run on more platforms?
Beam Cloud runs on Cloud, Python. Soketi runs on Linux, macOS, Windows.
Can I use Beam Cloud for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is Beam Cloud best used for?
Beam Cloud is most often used for deploying ml models with minimal latency and setup time, large-scale batch processing across thousands of concurrent tasks, cost-effective inference serving with bursty workloads, multi-cloud ai deployments with global low-latency access. Of those, deploying ml models with minimal latency and setup time and large-scale batch processing across thousands of concurrent tasks are not what Soketi is typically brought in for.
What can Beam Cloud do that Soketi cannot?
Beam Cloud covers Sub-second cold starts, Inference endpoints, Task queues, Sandboxes. Soketi covers Pusher protocol compatibility, Presence and private channels, Horizontal scaling, App management backends.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Beam Cloud: What is included in the Developer plan?

The Developer plan includes $30 monthly free credits, 5 GPU containers, 30 CPU containers, and community support. No upfront commitment is required.

Source
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.

Beam Cloud: How fast are the cold starts?

Beam Cloud achieves sub-second cold starts through memory snapshots that restore GPU containers 35x faster than traditional cold boots.

Source
Soketi: Do I need to change my client code?

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

Beam Cloud: Can I deploy across multiple cloud providers?

Yes, Beam Cloud supports multi-cloud deployment across AWS, GCP, Azure, Hetzner, and other providers with 30+ global regions available.

Source
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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