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Cybersecurity · head to head

Mimecast vs Soketi

Mimecast logo

Mimecast

Cybersecurity

Email and collaboration security

From
$4/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: Mimecast no pricing is published for any product or plan, and every route ends at a quote or demo request; 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: Mimecast covers Advanced threat detection, Soketi covers Pusher protocol compatibility.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Mimecast and Soketi actually diverge.

Attributes where Mimecast and Soketi differ
AttributeMimecastSoketi
Starting price$4/monthFree
Pricing modelsubscriptionOpen source, no licence fee
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsEmail, Cloud, CollaborationLinux, macOS, Windows
CategoryCybersecurityDeveloper Tools
Founded2003Unknown

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 Mimecast

  • Advanced threat detection
  • Secure sharing
  • Email encryption
  • Message tracking
  • Email archiving
  • Legal hold
  • eDiscovery
  • Backup and recovery

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.

Mimecast

  • Email security filtering against phishing and targeted attacksnot Soketi
  • Email archiving, continuity and compliance for organisationsnot Soketi

Soketi

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

Where each one falls short

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

Mimecast

  • No pricing is published for any product or plan, and every route ends at a quote or demo request
  • The platform is split into separately sold products for email security, awareness training, data protection and governance
  • Collaboration threat protection, DMARC analysis, incident response and email archiving are all further add ons on top of those

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

Mimecast

$4/month
  • Defender$4/month
    • Per user
    • Threat protection
    • Impersonation prevention
  • Archive$3/month
    • Email archiving
    • Legal hold
    • Search & recall
  • Unified$6/month
    • All Defender features
    • All Archive features
    • Backup

Soketi

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

Which should you pick?

Choose Mimecast if

  • You need advanced threat detection.
  • You work on Email, Cloud, Collaboration.
  • You also want secure sharing.
Mimecast 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 Mimecast or Soketi better?
Neither clearly leads. Mimecast starts at $4/month and Soketi at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Mimecast or Soketi?
Soketi has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at $4/month for Mimecast and Free for Soketi.
Does Mimecast or Soketi run on more platforms?
Mimecast runs on Email, Cloud, Collaboration. 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. Mimecast starts at $4/month.
What is Mimecast best used for?
Mimecast is most often used for email security filtering against phishing and targeted attacks, email archiving, continuity and compliance for organisations. Of those, email security filtering against phishing and targeted attacks and email archiving, continuity and compliance for organisations are not what Soketi is typically brought in for.
What can Mimecast do that Soketi cannot?
Mimecast covers Advanced threat detection, Secure sharing, Email encryption, Message tracking. Soketi covers Pusher protocol compatibility, Presence and private channels, Horizontal scaling, App management backends.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Mimecast: How much does Mimecast cost?

Mimecast does not publish pricing on its website. Customers must request a custom quote by contacting the sales team at +1 617 393 7000 or using the Get a Quote button.

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.

Mimecast: Is there a free trial of Mimecast?

Mimecast's trial and pricing options are not specified on the public website. Contact sales at +1 617 393 7000 or through their support portal at mimecastsupport.zendesk.com for trial availability.

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.

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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