Softwr

Developer Tools · head to head

Soketi vs StarRocks

Soketi logo

Soketi

Developer Tools

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

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
StarRocks logo

StarRocks

Databases

Apache 2.0 MPP analytical database built for joins on open table formats

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: 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.; StarRocks self-hosting is a genuine operations job: frontend and backend node roles, tablet distribution, compaction and materialised view refresh all need an owner, and there is no small-team-friendly single-binary mode.
  • They diverge on capability: Soketi covers Pusher protocol compatibility, StarRocks covers Cost-based optimiser.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Soketi and StarRocks actually diverge.

Attributes where Soketi and StarRocks differ
AttributeSoketiStarRocks
PlatformsLinux, macOS, WindowsLinux, Docker, Kubernetes
CategoryDeveloper ToolsDatabases

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 Soketi

  • Pusher protocol compatibility
  • Presence and private channels
  • Horizontal scaling
  • App management backends
  • Webhooks
  • Prometheus metrics

Only in StarRocks

  • Cost-based optimiser
  • Lakehouse query engine
  • Primary key tables
  • Materialised views
  • Shared-data mode
  • MySQL wire protocol

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Soketi

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

StarRocks

  • Customer-facing analytics where queries join a fact table to several dimensions and must return in well under a secondnot Soketi
  • Querying an Iceberg lakehouse directly without copying data into a proprietary warehouse formatnot Soketi
  • Replacing a ClickHouse deployment that has become unmanageable because every new question needs another denormalised tablenot Soketi
  • Real-time analytics fed by change data capture where rows must be updated in place rather than appendednot Soketi

Where each one falls short

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

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.

StarRocks

  • Self-hosting is a genuine operations job: frontend and backend node roles, tablet distribution, compaction and materialised view refresh all need an owner, and there is no small-team-friendly single-binary mode.
  • CelerData is by far the dominant contributor despite Linux Foundation stewardship, so the practical roadmap risk is the same as any single-vendor open source project.
  • It inherits a MySQL-flavoured SQL dialect from its Doris ancestry, so queries written for PostgreSQL, Snowflake or Trino need rewriting rather than porting.
  • Ecosystem support is thinner than ClickHouse or Trino: fewer client libraries, fewer managed hosting options and a much smaller pool of engineers who have run it in production.
  • Memory pressure under concurrent large joins is a common production failure, and the tuning knobs for query memory limits are unforgiving compared with a cloud warehouse that just scales.

Pricing, plan by plan

Soketi

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

StarRocks

Free
  • StarRocksFree
    • Apache 2.0 licence
    • Linux Foundation governance
    • No usage or node limits
  • CelerData Cloud$undefined/year
    • Managed StarRocks from the primary contributor
    • BYOC and serverless deployment options
    • Enterprise support and SLAs

Which should you pick?

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

Choose StarRocks if

  • You need cost-based optimiser.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes.
  • You also want lakehouse query engine.
StarRocks review

Questions people ask

Is Soketi or StarRocks better?
Neither clearly leads. Soketi starts at Free and StarRocks at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Soketi or StarRocks?
Soketi starts at Free and StarRocks at Free.
Does Soketi or StarRocks run on more platforms?
Soketi runs on Linux, macOS, Windows. StarRocks runs on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes.
Can I use Soketi for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is Soketi best used for?
Soketi is most often used for a laravel application that already uses echo and wants to stop paying a hosted realtime provider, realtime notifications or presence indicators where data must not leave your own infrastructure for compliance reasons, a local or ci environment that needs a pusher-compatible server without hitting a paid account, a high-connection-count application where hosted per-connection pricing has become the largest line in the infrastructure bill. Of those, a laravel application that already uses echo and wants to stop paying a hosted realtime provider and realtime notifications or presence indicators where data must not leave your own infrastructure for compliance reasons are not what StarRocks is typically brought in for.
What can Soketi do that StarRocks cannot?
Soketi covers Pusher protocol compatibility, Presence and private channels, Horizontal scaling, App management backends. StarRocks covers Cost-based optimiser, Lakehouse query engine, Primary key tables, Materialised views.

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.

StarRocks: Is StarRocks open source?

Yes, Apache 2.0, governed under the Linux Foundation since 2023.

Soketi: Do I need to change my client code?

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

StarRocks: How does it differ from ClickHouse?

StarRocks is built for joins across a star schema with a cost-based optimiser; ClickHouse is fastest on denormalised single tables.

Soketi: What does it cost?

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

StarRocks: Who maintains it?

CelerData, formerly StarRocks Inc, is the dominant contributor and sells the managed service.

Soketi: What are people moving to?

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

StarRocks: Can it query Iceberg tables directly?

Yes, along with Hudi, Delta Lake, Hive and Paimon, with a local cache for repeat queries.

Share

Related pages

More on Soketi

More on StarRocks

Keep looking

Other head to heads