Is OpenEBS or Soketi better?

Neither clearly leads. OpenEBS 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, OpenEBS or Soketi?

OpenEBS starts at Free and Soketi at Free.

Does OpenEBS or Soketi run on more platforms?

OpenEBS runs on Linux. Soketi runs on Linux, macOS, Windows.

Can I use OpenEBS for free?

Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.

What is OpenEBS best used for?

OpenEBS is most often used for running cassandra or kafka on kubernetes where the application already replicates and node-local volumes are sufficient, a platform team that needs persistent volumes on bare metal kubernetes without a per node subscription, an edge or lab deployment where a commercial storage licence cannot be justified, replacing hostpath volumes with something that has snapshots and a container storage interface driver. Of those, running cassandra or kafka on kubernetes where the application already replicates and node-local volumes are sufficient and a platform team that needs persistent volumes on bare metal kubernetes without a per node subscription are not what Soketi is typically brought in for.

What can OpenEBS do that Soketi cannot?

OpenEBS covers Replicated engine, Local PV engines, Kubernetes-native management, Snapshots and clones. Soketi covers Pusher protocol compatibility, Presence and private channels, Horizontal scaling, App management backends.

Cloud · head to head

OpenEBS vs Soketi

OpenEBS

Cloud

Open source container-attached storage for Kubernetes

From: Free
Rated: -

Full review Website

Soketi

Developer Tools

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

From: Free
Rated: -

Full review Website

The short version

Each has a real cost: OpenEBS there is no vendor on the other end of an incident unless you separately contract DataCore, so an outage at three in the morning is resolved by your own team and a public Slack channel.; 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: OpenEBS covers Replicated engine, Soketi covers Pusher protocol compatibility.
Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which OpenEBS and Soketi actually diverge.

Attributes where OpenEBS and Soketi differ
Attribute	OpenEBS	Soketi
Platforms	Linux	Linux, macOS, Windows
Category	Cloud	Developer Tools

Identical on both: starting price (Free), pricing model (Open source, no licence fee), 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 OpenEBS

Replicated engine
Local PV engines
Kubernetes-native management
Snapshots and clones
No licence fee
Hardware independence

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.

OpenEBS

Running Cassandra or Kafka on Kubernetes where the application already replicates and node-local volumes are sufficientnot Soketi
A platform team that needs persistent volumes on bare metal Kubernetes without a per node subscriptionnot Soketi
An edge or lab deployment where a commercial storage licence cannot be justifiednot Soketi
Replacing hostpath volumes with something that has snapshots and a Container Storage Interface drivernot Soketi

Soketi

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

Where each one falls short

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

OpenEBS

There is no vendor on the other end of an incident unless you separately contract DataCore, so an outage at three in the morning is resolved by your own team and a public Slack channel.
The project has several storage engines with different maturity and different operational characteristics, and choosing the wrong one for your workload produces poor results that look like a product failure.
Documentation and upgrade guidance assume real Kubernetes storage knowledge, so teams without that expertise underestimate the operational load they are taking on.
Project governance shifted after DataCore acquired MayaData in 2021, which means the direction of a supposedly neutral project is influenced by one commercial sponsor.
Disaster recovery, cross-cluster replication and policy-driven data services are thinner than in the commercial alternatives, so organisations with those requirements end up building them or buying a product anyway.

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

OpenEBS

Free

OpenEBSFree
- Apache 2.0 licensed
- All storage engines included
- No node or capacity limits

Soketi

Free

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

Which should you pick?

Choose OpenEBS if

You need replicated engine.
You want to start without paying.
You work on Linux.
You also want local pv engines.

OpenEBS 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 OpenEBS or Soketi better?: Neither clearly leads. OpenEBS 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, OpenEBS or Soketi?: OpenEBS starts at Free and Soketi at Free.
Does OpenEBS or Soketi run on more platforms?: OpenEBS runs on Linux. Soketi runs on Linux, macOS, Windows.
Can I use OpenEBS for free?: Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is OpenEBS best used for?: OpenEBS is most often used for running cassandra or kafka on kubernetes where the application already replicates and node-local volumes are sufficient, a platform team that needs persistent volumes on bare metal kubernetes without a per node subscription, an edge or lab deployment where a commercial storage licence cannot be justified, replacing hostpath volumes with something that has snapshots and a container storage interface driver. Of those, running cassandra or kafka on kubernetes where the application already replicates and node-local volumes are sufficient and a platform team that needs persistent volumes on bare metal kubernetes without a per node subscription are not what Soketi is typically brought in for.
What can OpenEBS do that Soketi cannot?: OpenEBS covers Replicated engine, Local PV engines, Kubernetes-native management, Snapshots and clones. Soketi covers Pusher protocol compatibility, Presence and private channels, Horizontal scaling, App management backends.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

OpenEBS: Who supports it in production?

The project is community supported. Commercial support is available from DataCore, which acquired the original sponsor MayaData in 2021. Establish that relationship before production, not during an incident.

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.

OpenEBS: Which engine should we use?

If your application replicates its own data, use a Local engine and avoid replicating twice. If it does not, such as with PostgreSQL, use the Replicated engine.

Soketi: Do I need to change my client code?

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

OpenEBS: Does it cost anything?

No licence fee. The cost is operational, and a support contract if you want someone accountable.

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.

OpenEBS vs Soketi

OpenEBS

Soketi

The short version

Where they differ

What each one covers

Only in OpenEBS

Only in Soketi

What people use each for

OpenEBS

Soketi

Where each one falls short

OpenEBS

Soketi

Pricing, plan by plan

OpenEBS

Soketi

Which should you pick?

Choose OpenEBS if

Choose Soketi if

Questions people ask

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Related pages

More on OpenEBS

More on Soketi

Keep looking

Other head to heads