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Cybersecurity · head to head

IVPN vs Soketi

I

IVPN

Cybersecurity

Privacy-focused VPN with anonymous account numbers instead of email signup

From
$6/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: IVPN has no free tier, unlike several consumer VPN competitors with limited free plans.; 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: IVPN covers Anonymous account numbers, Soketi covers Pusher protocol compatibility.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which IVPN and Soketi actually diverge.

Attributes where IVPN and Soketi differ
AttributeIVPNSoketi
Starting price$6/monthFree
Pricing modelsubscriptionOpen source, no licence fee
Free tierNoYes
Platformswindows, mac, linux, ios, androidLinux, 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 IVPN

  • Anonymous account numbers
  • Multi-hop connections
  • Independent audits
  • WireGuard and OpenVPN support
  • AntiTracker

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.

IVPN

  • Signing up for a VPN without providing an email addressnot Soketi
  • Verifying a VPN's no-logs claims via independent auditsnot Soketi
  • Layering multi-hop routing for higher-anonymity browsingnot Soketi
  • Blocking trackers and ads via built-in AntiTrackernot Soketi

Soketi

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

Where each one falls short

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

IVPN

  • Has no free tier, unlike several consumer VPN competitors with limited free plans.
  • Standard plan's two-connection limit is lower than many rivals offering five or more devices.
  • Smaller server network than large mainstream VPN providers, which can limit streaming unblocking.
  • Pricing is higher than budget VPN competitors for comparable simultaneous-connection counts.

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

IVPN

$6/month
  • Standard$6/month
    • 2 simultaneous connections
    • $60/year billed annually
    • WireGuard and OpenVPN support
  • Pro$10/month
    • 7 simultaneous connections
    • Multi-hop connections
    • $100/year billed annually

Soketi

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

Which should you pick?

Choose IVPN if

  • You need anonymous account numbers.
  • You work on windows, mac, linux, ios, android.
  • You also want multi-hop connections.
IVPN 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 IVPN or Soketi better?
Neither clearly leads. IVPN starts at $6/month and Soketi at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, IVPN or Soketi?
Soketi has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at $6/month for IVPN and Free for Soketi.
Does IVPN or Soketi run on more platforms?
IVPN runs on windows, mac, linux, ios, android. 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. IVPN starts at $6/month.
What is IVPN best used for?
IVPN is most often used for signing up for a vpn without providing an email address, verifying a vpn's no-logs claims via independent audits, layering multi-hop routing for higher-anonymity browsing, blocking trackers and ads via built-in antitracker. Of those, signing up for a vpn without providing an email address and verifying a vpn's no-logs claims via independent audits are not what Soketi is typically brought in for.
What can IVPN do that Soketi cannot?
IVPN covers Anonymous account numbers, Multi-hop connections, Independent audits, WireGuard and OpenVPN support. Soketi covers Pusher protocol compatibility, Presence and private channels, Horizontal scaling, App management backends.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

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.

Soketi: Do I need to change my client code?

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

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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