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Cybersecurity · head to head

Semperis vs Soketi

Semperis logo

Semperis

Cybersecurity

Identity threat detection and Active Directory forest recovery for AD, Entra ID and Okta, from a privately held US vendor.

From
On request
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: Semperis scope is limited to Active Directory, Entra ID and Okta, so an organisation whose critical identity lives elsewhere gets little from it, and the recovery value declines in direct proportion to how much has already moved off on-premises AD.; 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: Semperis covers Active Directory Forest Recovery, Soketi covers Pusher protocol compatibility.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Semperis and Soketi actually diverge.

Attributes where Semperis and Soketi differ
AttributeSemperisSoketi
Starting priceOn requestFree
Pricing modelquoteOpen source, no licence fee
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsWebLinux, 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 Semperis

  • Active Directory Forest Recovery
  • Malware-free restore
  • Replication-stream monitoring
  • Automated rollback
  • Attack indicator scoring
  • Entra ID and Okta coverage
  • Purple Knight
  • Forest Druid

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.

Semperis

  • An organisation that cannot answer an auditor or insurer asking how long it would take to rebuild Active Directory after a destructive attacknot Soketi
  • Post-incident recovery where domain controllers are compromised and restoring from system-state backup would reintroduce the attacker's footholdnot Soketi
  • Continuous detection of privileged group changes and directory-level tampering that domain controller security logs missnot Soketi
  • Hybrid estates where AD, Entra ID and Okta all matter and no single tool currently shows changes across the threenot Soketi

Soketi

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

Where each one falls short

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

Semperis

  • Scope is limited to Active Directory, Entra ID and Okta, so an organisation whose critical identity lives elsewhere gets little from it, and the recovery value declines in direct proportion to how much has already moved off on-premises AD.
  • The licence buys tooling, not a proven runbook: forest recovery is only worth what your last rehearsal demonstrated, and a plan that has never been executed end to end in a lab is an untested assumption regardless of what was purchased.
  • It overlaps with backup and directory management products from Quest, Veeam, Commvault and others, so the buyer must argue internally why a dedicated product is needed alongside a backup contract that already claims to protect Active Directory.
  • Running Directory Services Protector well requires someone who understands AD internals, replication metadata and Tier 0 attack paths, and without that person the alerts on privileged changes are either ignored or auto-reverted in ways that break legitimate administration.
  • Licensing is driven by identity object counts, so directories carrying years of stale user accounts and service principals pay for objects that should have been deleted, and the cleanup project that would reduce the bill is the one nobody has time for.

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

Semperis

On request

No published plan breakdown. See the Semperis review.

Soketi

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

Which should you pick?

Choose Semperis if

  • You need active directory forest recovery.
  • You also want malware-free restore.
Semperis 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 Semperis or Soketi better?
Neither clearly leads. Semperis starts at On request and Soketi at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Semperis or Soketi?
Soketi has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at On request for Semperis and Free for Soketi.
Does Semperis or Soketi run on more platforms?
Semperis runs on Web. 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. Semperis starts at On request.
What is Semperis best used for?
Semperis is most often used for an organisation that cannot answer an auditor or insurer asking how long it would take to rebuild active directory after a destructive attack, post-incident recovery where domain controllers are compromised and restoring from system-state backup would reintroduce the attacker's foothold, continuous detection of privileged group changes and directory-level tampering that domain controller security logs miss, hybrid estates where ad, entra id and okta all matter and no single tool currently shows changes across the three. Of those, an organisation that cannot answer an auditor or insurer asking how long it would take to rebuild active directory after a destructive attack and post-incident recovery where domain controllers are compromised and restoring from system-state backup would reintroduce the attacker's foothold are not what Soketi is typically brought in for.
What can Semperis do that Soketi cannot?
Semperis covers Active Directory Forest Recovery, Malware-free restore, Replication-stream monitoring, Automated rollback. Soketi covers Pusher protocol compatibility, Presence and private channels, Horizontal scaling, App management backends.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Semperis: Does this replace my backups?

No. It replaces the Active Directory recovery procedure specifically. You still need backups for everything else, and the point of Semperis is that a generic system-state backup of a domain controller is a poor way to recover a forest because it restores the operating system along with whatever compromised it.

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.

Semperis: Is it useful if we are cloud-only on Entra ID?

Partly. Directory Services Protector covers Entra ID and Okta for change tracking and posture, but the forest recovery product, which is the strongest reason to buy, applies to on-premises Active Directory. A genuinely cloud-only organisation should weigh it against Microsoft's own tooling.

Soketi: Do I need to change my client code?

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

Semperis: Are Purple Knight and Forest Druid really free?

Yes, both are free downloads with no licence requirement, and they are widely used by organisations that are not Semperis customers. They are also, transparently, the top of the sales funnel.

Soketi: What does it cost?

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

Semperis: How long does forest recovery actually take?

The honest answer is whatever your rehearsal took. The vendor's case is hours instead of days, and automation genuinely removes most manual steps, but the number that matters for your board is the one from a test in your own environment.

Soketi: What are people moving to?

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

Semperis: Does it require agents on domain controllers?

It collects directory changes from the AD replication stream, which is what lets it see changes that bypass the security log. Deployment details vary by product and version, so confirm the exact architecture against your domain controller change-control rules.

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