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Technology · head to head

Drift vs Soketi

Drift logo

Drift

Technology

The Conversation Cloud

From
$2500/month
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: Drift product is being sunset by Salesloft with successor service (1mind) recommended; 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: Drift covers Live chat, Soketi covers Pusher protocol compatibility.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Drift and Soketi actually diverge.

Attributes where Drift and Soketi differ
AttributeDriftSoketi
Starting price$2500/monthFree
Pricing modelUnknownOpen source, no licence fee
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsWebLinux, macOS, Windows
CategoryTechnologyDeveloper Tools
Founded2015Unknown

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 Drift

  • Live chat
  • AI chatbots
  • Meeting scheduling
  • Email sequences
  • Visitor intelligence
  • Conversation routing
  • Mobile app
  • Analytics dashboard

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.

Drift

  • Lead qualificationnot Soketi
  • Meeting bookingnot Soketi
  • Customer supportnot Soketi
  • Account-based marketingnot Soketi
  • Sales accelerationnot Soketi

Soketi

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

Where each one falls short

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

Drift

  • Product is being sunset by Salesloft with successor service (1mind) recommended
  • Mandatory bundling within Salesloft increases cost
  • No free tier available
  • Customer support and knowledge base have been deprioritized
  • Limited to enterprise B2B pipeline generation focus

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

Drift

$2500/month

No published plan breakdown. See the Drift review.

Soketi

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

Which should you pick?

Choose Drift if

  • You need live chat.
  • You also want ai chatbots.
Drift 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 Drift or Soketi better?
Neither clearly leads. Drift starts at $2500/month and Soketi at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Drift or Soketi?
Soketi has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at $2500/month for Drift and Free for Soketi.
Does Drift or Soketi run on more platforms?
Drift runs on Web. 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. Drift starts at $2500/month.
What is Drift best used for?
Drift is most often used for lead qualification, meeting booking, customer support, account-based marketing. Of those, lead qualification and meeting booking are not what Soketi is typically brought in for.
What can Drift do that Soketi cannot?
Drift covers Live chat, AI chatbots, Meeting scheduling, Email sequences. Soketi covers Pusher protocol compatibility, Presence and private channels, Horizontal scaling, App management backends.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Drift: What is the current status of Drift in 2026?

On March 6, 2026, Clari and Salesloft announced the gradual sunset of Drift's conversational marketing solution, with 1mind named as its exclusive AI successor. Drift remains available but its future is limited.

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.

Drift: How much does Drift cost?

Drift pricing starts around $2,500/month ($30,000/year) for Premium chat-only capabilities, with Enterprise plans exceeding $80,000/year. Drift is bundled within Salesloft and billed annually only.

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.

Drift: What features come with Drift Premium?

Premium plans include live chat widget, custom chatbot flows, meeting scheduling with calendar integration, basic playbooks, email sequences, and standard integrations.

Source
Soketi: What does it cost?

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

Drift: Does Drift offer a free plan?

No, Drift no longer publicly advertises a free plan as of 2026. All plans require annual billing through Salesloft.

Source
Soketi: What are people moving to?

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

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