Testing · head to head
Cucumber vs Soketi
Cucumber
Testing
Behaviour-driven development testing framework that returned to community ownership after nine years under SmartBear
- From
- Free
- Rated
- -
Soketi
Developer Tools
Self-hosted, Pusher-compatible WebSockets server with a stalled maintenance record
- From
- Free
- Rated
- -
The short version
- Each has a real cost: Cucumber gherkin's plain-language layer adds a real maintenance burden, keeping feature files, step definitions and implementation code synchronised across a large suite is a known source of drift and duplicated effort.; 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: Cucumber covers Gherkin syntax, Soketi covers Pusher protocol compatibility.
- Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.
Where they differ
Only the attributes on which Cucumber and Soketi actually diverge.
Identical on both: starting price (Free), pricing model (Open source, no licence fee), free tier (Yes), platforms (Linux, macOS, Windows), 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 Cucumber
- Gherkin syntax
- Step definition binding
- Multi-language support
- Living documentation
- Tagging and scenario outlines
- Reporting plugins
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.
Cucumber
- A team practising behaviour-driven development that wants shared, readable specifications between product owners and engineersnot Soketi
- An organisation wanting living documentation that stays synchronised with actual test coverage rather than a separate specification documentnot Soketi
- A QA team migrating acceptance tests from a proprietary BDD tool to an open source, community-governed alternativenot Soketi
- A Java, JavaScript or Ruby project needing a mature BDD framework rather than building Gherkin-style parsing from scratchnot Soketi
Soketi
- A Laravel application that already uses Echo and wants to stop paying a hosted realtime providernot Cucumber
- Realtime notifications or presence indicators where data must not leave your own infrastructure for compliance reasonsnot Cucumber
- A local or CI environment that needs a Pusher-compatible server without hitting a paid accountnot Cucumber
- A high-connection-count application where hosted per-connection pricing has become the largest line in the infrastructure billnot Cucumber
Where each one falls short
Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.
Cucumber
- Gherkin's plain-language layer adds a real maintenance burden, keeping feature files, step definitions and implementation code synchronised across a large suite is a known source of drift and duplicated effort.
- Ownership has moved twice in under a decade, from independent to SmartBear-owned to independent community ownership again, which should temper confidence in any specific long-range roadmap claim.
- Non-technical stakeholders who are meant to read and write Gherkin scenarios often do not engage with them in practice, leaving the readability benefit unrealised while the maintenance cost remains.
- Step definition reuse across a large feature file set can become tangled, with ambiguous step matching causing hard-to-debug failures as a suite grows.
- As a community-owned project without a corporate backer's support infrastructure, enterprise buyers wanting a formal support contract have no vendor to buy one from, unlike some competing BDD tools still sold commercially.
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
Cucumber
Free- CucumberFree
- Full functionality across Cucumber-JVM, Cucumber-JS, Cucumber-Ruby and other implementations
- Community support via GitHub
- Returned to independent community ownership in December 2024 after nine years connected to SmartBear
Soketi
Free- SoketiFree
- MIT licensed
- Unlimited connections subject to your own hardware
- No vendor billing
Which should you pick?
Choose Cucumber if
- You need gherkin syntax.
- You want to start without paying.
- You work on Linux, macOS, Windows.
- You also want step definition binding.
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.
Questions people ask
- Is Cucumber or Soketi better?
- Neither clearly leads. Cucumber 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, Cucumber or Soketi?
- Cucumber starts at Free and Soketi at Free.
- Does Cucumber or Soketi run on more platforms?
- Both run on Linux, macOS, Windows, so platform support will not decide this one for you.
- Can I use Cucumber for free?
- Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
- What is Cucumber best used for?
- Cucumber is most often used for a team practising behaviour-driven development that wants shared, readable specifications between product owners and engineers, an organisation wanting living documentation that stays synchronised with actual test coverage rather than a separate specification document, a qa team migrating acceptance tests from a proprietary bdd tool to an open source, community-governed alternative, a java, javascript or ruby project needing a mature bdd framework rather than building gherkin-style parsing from scratch. Of those, a team practising behaviour-driven development that wants shared, readable specifications between product owners and engineers and an organisation wanting living documentation that stays synchronised with actual test coverage rather than a separate specification document are not what Soketi is typically brought in for.
- What can Cucumber do that Soketi cannot?
- Cucumber covers Gherkin syntax, Step definition binding, Multi-language support, Living documentation. Soketi covers Pusher protocol compatibility, Presence and private channels, Horizontal scaling, App management backends.
Answered from the vendors’ own pages
Cucumber: Is Cucumber owned by SmartBear?
No, not currently. SmartBear acquired Cucumber Ltd in 2019 but the open source project returned to independent community ownership in December 2024.
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.
Cucumber: Is Cucumber free?
Yes, entirely open source with no licence fee across all its language implementations.
Soketi: Do I need to change my client code?
No. Pusher client SDKs and Laravel Echo work by changing the host, port and credentials.
Cucumber: Does Cucumber replace Selenium or Appium?
No, Cucumber provides the Gherkin specification layer and step definition binding; the actual browser or mobile automation still needs a driver such as Selenium or Appium underneath.
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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- Soketi vs Cody
- Soketi vs ConfigCat
- Soketi vs Cortex
- Soketi vs Dagger
- Soketi vs Deno
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