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Cybersecurity · head to head

Mullvad VPN vs Soketi

M

Mullvad VPN

Cybersecurity

Privacy-first VPN with one flat price and no email required to sign up

From
$5/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: Mullvad VPN offers no free trial or free tier, unlike several consumer VPN competitors.; 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: Mullvad VPN covers Flat single pricing, Soketi covers Pusher protocol compatibility.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Mullvad VPN and Soketi actually diverge.

Attributes where Mullvad VPN and Soketi differ
AttributeMullvad VPNSoketi
Starting price$5/monthFree
Pricing modelsubscriptionOpen source, no licence fee
Free tierNoYes
Platformswindows, mac, linux, ios, androidLinux, macOS, Windows
CategoryCybersecurityDeveloper Tools
Founded2009Unknown

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 Mullvad VPN

  • Flat single pricing
  • Account-number signup
  • Cash and crypto payments
  • WireGuard support
  • Independent audits

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.

Mullvad VPN

  • Paying for a VPN anonymously with cash or cryptocurrencynot Soketi
  • Avoiding tiered upsells with a single flat-rate plannot Soketi
  • Signing up without providing an email addressnot Soketi
  • Verifying a provider's privacy claims via independent auditsnot Soketi

Soketi

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

Where each one falls short

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

Mullvad VPN

  • Offers no free trial or free tier, unlike several consumer VPN competitors.
  • Lacks a bundled tiered structure, so there is no cheaper limited plan for occasional users.
  • Server network and streaming-unblocking performance is smaller than large mainstream VPN providers.
  • No annual discount, meaning long-term subscribers pay the same monthly rate as short-term users.

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

Mullvad VPN

$5/month
  • Mullvad VPN$5/month
    • Flat rate regardless of subscription length
    • 5 simultaneous devices
    • No email required

Soketi

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

Which should you pick?

Choose Mullvad VPN if

  • You need flat single pricing.
  • You work on windows, mac, linux, ios, android.
  • You also want account-number signup.
Mullvad VPN 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 Mullvad VPN or Soketi better?
Neither clearly leads. Mullvad VPN starts at $5/month and Soketi at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Mullvad VPN or Soketi?
Soketi has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at $5/month for Mullvad VPN and Free for Soketi.
Does Mullvad VPN or Soketi run on more platforms?
Mullvad VPN 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. Mullvad VPN starts at $5/month.
What is Mullvad VPN best used for?
Mullvad VPN is most often used for paying for a vpn anonymously with cash or cryptocurrency, avoiding tiered upsells with a single flat-rate plan, signing up without providing an email address, verifying a provider's privacy claims via independent audits. Of those, paying for a vpn anonymously with cash or cryptocurrency and avoiding tiered upsells with a single flat-rate plan are not what Soketi is typically brought in for.
What can Mullvad VPN do that Soketi cannot?
Mullvad VPN covers Flat single pricing, Account-number signup, Cash and crypto payments, WireGuard 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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