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Documentation · head to head

Outline vs Soketi

Outline logo

Outline

Documentation

Team knowledge base under the Business Source Licence, self-hostable or vendor hosted

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: Outline the Business Source Licence is not an open source licence, so anyone planning to host Outline for clients, resell it or embed it in a commercial service is prohibited until the per-release change date passes, and this is regularly discovered only at legal review.; 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: Outline covers Structured collections, Soketi covers Pusher protocol compatibility.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Outline and Soketi actually diverge.

Attributes where Outline and Soketi differ
AttributeOutlineSoketi
Pricing modelFree to self-host, per user per month when hosted by the vendorOpen source, no licence fee
PlatformsWeb, Self-hosted, Docker, iOS, AndroidLinux, macOS, Windows
CategoryDocumentationDeveloper 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 Outline

  • Structured collections
  • Block editor
  • Search
  • Backlinks and mentions
  • Templates
  • API and webhooks
  • Single sign-on
  • Self-hosting

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.

Outline

  • Running an internal wiki on your own infrastructure when documentation cannot leave a specific jurisdictionnot Soketi
  • Replacing a general-purpose workspace tool with something narrower where search speed and writing flow matter mostnot Soketi
  • Keeping engineering decision records and postmortems in templated documents that link to each other automaticallynot Soketi
  • Giving a company already standardised on Google or Okta a wiki that inherits identity and group membership directlynot Soketi

Soketi

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

Where each one falls short

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

Outline

  • The Business Source Licence is not an open source licence, so anyone planning to host Outline for clients, resell it or embed it in a commercial service is prohibited until the per-release change date passes, and this is regularly discovered only at legal review.
  • There is no local password authentication, so self-hosting requires an identity provider to be in place first, which turns a small internal wiki into a project with a dependency on Google, Okta, Entra or a Keycloak instance somebody has to run.
  • Self-hosting needs Postgres, Redis and S3-compatible object storage together, so the operational footprint is larger than the single database most internal wikis require.
  • The hosted plans offer no customer-selectable hosting region, so buyers with data residency obligations are pushed to self-hosting even when they would have paid to avoid running servers.
  • It is built for internal knowledge rather than public documentation, with no versioned documentation sets, no static output and limited public publishing, so it will not serve as a product documentation site.
  • Because it is a single-vendor project rather than a foundation-governed one, a future licence or pricing change applies to new releases and the only defence is staying on an older version.

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

Outline

Free
  • Self-hostedFree
    • Source available under the Business Source Licence
    • No licence fee for use inside your own organisation
    • Requires Postgres, Redis and S3-compatible storage
  • Team (hosted)$undefined/month
    • Charged per user per month
    • Hosted and maintained by the vendor
    • Single sign-on through Google, Slack or Microsoft
  • Enterprise (hosted)$undefined/month
    • SAML single sign-on and provisioning
    • Administrative controls and audit visibility
    • Negotiated terms and support

Soketi

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

Which should you pick?

Choose Outline if

  • You need structured collections.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, Self-hosted, Docker, iOS, Android.
  • You also want block editor.
Outline 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 Outline or Soketi better?
Neither clearly leads. Outline 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, Outline or Soketi?
Outline starts at Free and Soketi at Free.
Does Outline or Soketi run on more platforms?
Outline runs on Web, Self-hosted, Docker, iOS, Android. Soketi runs on Linux, macOS, Windows.
Can I use Outline for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is Outline best used for?
Outline is most often used for running an internal wiki on your own infrastructure when documentation cannot leave a specific jurisdiction, replacing a general-purpose workspace tool with something narrower where search speed and writing flow matter most, keeping engineering decision records and postmortems in templated documents that link to each other automatically, giving a company already standardised on google or okta a wiki that inherits identity and group membership directly. Of those, running an internal wiki on your own infrastructure when documentation cannot leave a specific jurisdiction and replacing a general-purpose workspace tool with something narrower where search speed and writing flow matter most are not what Soketi is typically brought in for.
What can Outline do that Soketi cannot?
Outline covers Structured collections, Block editor, Search, Backlinks and mentions. Soketi covers Pusher protocol compatibility, Presence and private channels, Horizontal scaling, App management backends.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Outline: Is Outline open source?

No, not in the OSI sense. It is source available under the Business Source Licence, which permits internal use and self-hosting but not offering it as a service to others, with each release converting to an open source licence after its change date.

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.

Outline: Can I run it for free?

Yes, for your own organisation. Self-hosting carries no licence fee, only the cost of running Postgres, Redis, object storage and an identity provider.

Soketi: Do I need to change my client code?

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

Outline: Can I choose where the hosted version stores data?

No. The hosted plans do not offer a region choice, so residency requirements mean self-hosting.

Soketi: What does it cost?

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

Outline: Does it work for public product documentation?

Poorly. It has no versioned documentation sets or static site output, so it is best kept for internal knowledge.

Soketi: What are people moving to?

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

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