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Cybersecurity · head to head

BigID vs Soketi

BigID logo

BigID

Cybersecurity

Data discovery and classification across cloud, on-premise and unstructured stores

From
On request
Free plan
No
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

  • Only Soketi has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: BigID pricing scales with data sources and volume, so the cost rises exactly as the estate you need to scan grows, and the modules shown in a demo, including AI security posture and headless deployment, are frequently separate licences that appear only in the final quote.; 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: BigID covers Structured and unstructured scanning, Soketi covers Pusher protocol compatibility.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which BigID and Soketi actually diverge.

Attributes where BigID and Soketi differ
AttributeBigIDSoketi
Starting priceOn requestFree
Pricing modelquoteOpen source, no licence fee
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsWeb, API, Self-hostedLinux, macOS, Windows
CategoryCybersecurityDeveloper Tools

Identical on both: 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 BigID

  • Structured and unstructured scanning
  • Identity correlation
  • Data security posture management
  • Access intelligence
  • Privacy request support
  • Retention and minimisation
  • AI data controls
  • Policy and remediation workflow

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.

BigID

  • A bank that has to prove which of thirty year old file shares contain customer identifiers before a data centre migrationnot Soketi
  • A privacy team that cannot fulfil deletion requests because nobody knows which unstructured stores hold a given customer’s recordsnot Soketi
  • A security team wanting to find sensitive data sitting in publicly readable object storage buckets before an attacker doesnot Soketi
  • A company building retrieval augmented AI that must exclude regulated personal data from the index it feeds to a modelnot Soketi

Soketi

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

Where each one falls short

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

BigID

  • Pricing scales with data sources and volume, so the cost rises exactly as the estate you need to scan grows, and the modules shown in a demo, including AI security posture and headless deployment, are frequently separate licences that appear only in the final quote.
  • Scanning large unstructured estates is slow and computationally expensive, so most organisations sample rather than scan everything, which reintroduces uncertainty into the very question they bought the tool to settle.
  • Classification accuracy on messy unstructured content requires tuning, and out of the box false positives on things like reference numbers create a large triage backlog that a small governance team cannot clear.
  • It discovers and reports but does not remediate, so realising value requires a separate process and often separate tooling to actually delete, restrict or move the data it flags.
  • It is built for large enterprises and both the price and the administrative overhead are disproportionate below a few thousand employees, where a lighter DSPM tool covers the security use case for far less.

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

BigID

On request
  • BigID Platform$undefined/year
    • Priced by number of data sources and data volume
    • Discovery and classification core
    • Optional DSPM, access intelligence and AI security modules licensed separately

Soketi

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

Which should you pick?

Choose BigID if

  • You need structured and unstructured scanning.
  • You work on Web, API, Self-hosted.
  • You also want identity correlation.
BigID 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 BigID or Soketi better?
Neither clearly leads. BigID starts at On request and Soketi at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, BigID or Soketi?
Soketi has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at On request for BigID and Free for Soketi.
Does BigID or Soketi run on more platforms?
BigID runs on Web, API, Self-hosted. Soketi runs on Linux, macOS, Windows.
Can I use Soketi for free?
Yes. Soketi has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. BigID starts at On request.
What is BigID best used for?
BigID is most often used for a bank that has to prove which of thirty year old file shares contain customer identifiers before a data centre migration, a privacy team that cannot fulfil deletion requests because nobody knows which unstructured stores hold a given customer’s records, a security team wanting to find sensitive data sitting in publicly readable object storage buckets before an attacker does, a company building retrieval augmented ai that must exclude regulated personal data from the index it feeds to a model. Of those, a bank that has to prove which of thirty year old file shares contain customer identifiers before a data centre migration and a privacy team that cannot fulfil deletion requests because nobody knows which unstructured stores hold a given customer’s records are not what Soketi is typically brought in for.
What can BigID do that Soketi cannot?
BigID covers Structured and unstructured scanning, Identity correlation, Data security posture management, Access intelligence. Soketi covers Pusher protocol compatibility, Presence and private channels, Horizontal scaling, App management backends.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

BigID: What does BigID cost?

It is quoted by data source count and volume. Reported contracts run from roughly 15,000 to 175,000 US dollars a year, and add-on modules such as AI security posture are licensed on top.

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.

BigID: Does it handle unstructured data?

Yes, and that is its main advantage. It classifies data in files and shares and correlates findings back to individuals, not just to data types.

Soketi: Do I need to change my client code?

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

BigID: Will it delete the data it finds?

Not by itself in most deployments. It identifies and routes findings; deletion and remediation happen through your own processes or connected systems.

Soketi: What does it cost?

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

BigID: Is it a privacy tool or a security tool?

Both are sold from the same discovery core. Buyers increasingly come from security wanting data security posture management rather than from legal wanting privacy.

Soketi: What are people moving to?

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

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