Softwr

Cloud · head to head

Infracost vs Soketi

Infracost logo

Infracost

Cloud

Cloud cost estimates in pull requests, with governance in the paid tier

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Soketi logo

Soketi

Developer Tools

Self-hosted, Pusher-compatible WebSockets server with a stalled maintenance record

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Infracost usage-based resources such as object storage, serverless functions and data transfer have no cost without monthly usage figures supplied by hand, and the documentation warns plainly that engineers otherwise read them as free.; 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: Infracost covers Pull request cost diffs, Soketi covers Pusher protocol compatibility.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Infracost and Soketi actually diverge.

Attributes where Infracost and Soketi differ
AttributeInfracostSoketi
Pricing modelFree open source tool, then per month by run volumeOpen source, no licence fee
PlatformsWeb, macOS, Linux, Windows, DockerLinux, 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 Infracost

  • Pull request cost diffs
  • Multi-format parsing
  • Apache-2.0 CLI
  • FinOps policies
  • Automated remediation
  • IDE integration

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.

Infracost

  • Teams that want an expensive infrastructure change questioned at review rather than discovered on an invoicenot Soketi
  • Platform groups enforcing tagging so cloud spend can be attributed to a team at allnot Soketi
  • Organisations adopting FinOps practice without buying a full cloud management platformnot Soketi
  • Engineers who want a cost figure in the editor while writing the Terraformnot Soketi

Soketi

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

Where each one falls short

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

Infracost

  • Usage-based resources such as object storage, serverless functions and data transfer have no cost without monthly usage figures supplied by hand, and the documentation warns plainly that engineers otherwise read them as free.
  • Splitting production from non-production usage assumptions is not supported in the free usage file, which the docs attribute to a missing project filter, so that separation requires the paid product.
  • The step from 250 to 1,000 dollars a month is large and the Cloud tier includes only ten admin seats, with developer seats charged at a figure that is not published, so the cost for a large organisation cannot be computed from the pricing page.
  • Estimates are list price. Negotiated agreements, committed use discounts and reserved instance economics require SKU-level overrides available only on Enterprise, so the number in the pull request is not the number on the bill.
  • The share of the product covered by the Apache-2.0 licence is shrinking. Checks, automated fixes, policies and agent integrations are all hosted-only, so the permissive licence increasingly protects the estimation engine rather than the product.

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

Infracost

Free
  • FreeFree
    • 1,000 runs a month
    • Terraform, CloudFormation and CDK estimates
    • Community support
  • Starter$250/month
    • 10,000 runs a month
    • Email support
  • Cloud$1000/month
    • Ten admin seats, developer seats charged separately
    • FinOps policies and cost guardrails
    • Dashboards and audit trails
  • Enterprise$undefined/year
    • SKU-level price overrides for negotiated rates
    • Business unit reporting
    • SSO with SAML group mapping

Soketi

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

Which should you pick?

Choose Infracost if

  • You need pull request cost diffs.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, macOS, Linux, Windows, Docker.
  • You also want multi-format parsing.
Infracost 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 Infracost or Soketi better?
Neither clearly leads. Infracost 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, Infracost or Soketi?
Infracost starts at Free and Soketi at Free.
Does Infracost or Soketi run on more platforms?
Infracost runs on Web, macOS, Linux, Windows, Docker. Soketi runs on Linux, macOS, Windows.
Can I use Infracost for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is Infracost best used for?
Infracost is most often used for teams that want an expensive infrastructure change questioned at review rather than discovered on an invoice, platform groups enforcing tagging so cloud spend can be attributed to a team at all, organisations adopting finops practice without buying a full cloud management platform, engineers who want a cost figure in the editor while writing the terraform. Of those, teams that want an expensive infrastructure change questioned at review rather than discovered on an invoice and platform groups enforcing tagging so cloud spend can be attributed to a team at all are not what Soketi is typically brought in for.
What can Infracost do that Soketi cannot?
Infracost covers Pull request cost diffs, Multi-format parsing, Apache-2.0 CLI, FinOps policies. Soketi covers Pusher protocol compatibility, Presence and private channels, Horizontal scaling, App management backends.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Infracost: Is the open source version genuinely useful on its own?

Yes, for estimation. It parses your definitions and produces breakdowns and diffs locally. What it does not do is comment on pull requests, enforce policy or report across an organisation, all of which are hosted-only.

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.

Infracost: Will the estimate match my cloud bill?

No. It is list price. Committed use discounts, enterprise agreements and reserved instances need SKU-level overrides that sit in the Enterprise tier.

Soketi: Do I need to change my client code?

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

Infracost: Why do my S3 and Lambda resources show no cost?

Usage-based resources need monthly usage values supplied in a usage file or defined centrally. Without them they estimate at zero, which is the documented behaviour and the most common way the tool misleads.

Soketi: What does it cost?

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

Infracost: Has the licence ever changed?

No. The command line tool has been Apache 2.0 throughout, with no Business Source or AGPL episode, which is unusual in this category.

Soketi: What are people moving to?

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

Infracost: What is a run?

Not defined on the public pricing page, and the run allowance is what separates the free and Starter tiers, so establish the definition before choosing between them.

Share

Related pages

More on Infracost

More on Soketi

Keep looking

Other head to heads