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Databases · head to head

Canary Labs vs Solace PubSub+

Canary Labs logo

Canary Labs

Databases

Industrial process historian with published per-tag pricing and no client licence fees

From
$3000/year
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Solace PubSub+ logo

Solace PubSub+

Databases

Multi-protocol event broker sold as software, cloud service or a hardware appliance

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Solace PubSub+ has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • Each has a real cost: Canary Labs pricing steps by tag band rather than actual tags, so a site sitting just above a threshold pays the next band in full; growth from 3,400 to 3,600 tags is a licence purchase, not a rounding error.; Solace PubSub+ no pricing is published at any tier, so evaluation requires a sales engagement before you can even judge whether it is in budget, and broker tier sizing determines cost in ways buyers frequently get wrong.
  • They diverge on capability: Canary Labs covers Loss-less compression, Solace PubSub+ covers Multi-protocol broker.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Canary Labs and Solace PubSub+ actually diverge.

Attributes where Canary Labs and Solace PubSub+ differ
AttributeCanary LabsSolace PubSub+
Starting price$3000/yearFree
Pricing modelPer tag band per yearquote
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsWindows, WebLinux, Docker, Kubernetes, Cloud, Hardware appliance

Identical on both: user rating (Not yet rated), category (Databases).

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 Canary Labs

  • Loss-less compression
  • Unlimited clients
  • Store and forward
  • Views service
  • Sparkplug B
  • Calculation engine
  • Axiom
  • ODBC and REST

Only in Solace PubSub+

  • Multi-protocol broker
  • Dynamic message routing
  • Hardware appliance
  • Event Portal
  • Guaranteed delivery
  • Mission Control
  • Topic hierarchies and wildcards
  • Kafka and MQ bridging

What people use each for

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

Canary Labs

  • A manufacturer that needs a compliant historian but cannot justify a PI System enterprise agreementnot Solace PubSub+
  • A water utility replacing SCADA-embedded logging with a historian that survives the next SCADA replacementnot Solace PubSub+
  • An Ignition site that wants long-term storage and trending without paying per-client for dashboardsnot Solace PubSub+
  • A plant with regulatory data-retention obligations where swinging-door compression would not survive an auditnot Solace PubSub+

Solace PubSub+

  • A bank building an event mesh across regions where a Java JMS application and an MQTT mobile client must share the same topic spacenot Canary Labs
  • An exchange or trading platform with a latency budget that needs the hardware appliance rather than a software brokernot Canary Labs
  • An airline distributing operational events to ground systems, aircraft and partner APIs over different protocolsnot Canary Labs
  • A manufacturer bridging factory MQTT telemetry into an enterprise Kafka estate without writing translation servicesnot Canary Labs

Where each one falls short

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

Canary Labs

  • Pricing steps by tag band rather than actual tags, so a site sitting just above a threshold pays the next band in full; growth from 3,400 to 3,600 tags is a licence purchase, not a rounding error.
  • CustomerCare at 18 percent of licence cost is effectively mandatory on perpetual licences because lapsing it removes upgrades, so the perpetual option is not really a one-time cost.
  • The storage format is proprietary; getting data out at volume means the ODBC connector, an additional 2,500 USD one-time or 1,000 USD a year, or writing against the REST API.
  • Canary is a small vendor with a limited partner network outside North America, so support coverage and integrator availability in Europe and Asia are thinner than for AVEVA or Ignition.
  • It is a Windows-only server product with no Linux or container deployment, which complicates placing collectors in modern edge estates.

Solace PubSub+

  • No pricing is published at any tier, so evaluation requires a sales engagement before you can even judge whether it is in budget, and broker tier sizing determines cost in ways buyers frequently get wrong.
  • The free Standard edition has hard capacity and support limits, which makes it useful for development but means any real deployment triggers a commercial negotiation.
  • The proprietary SMF protocol gives the best performance and feature coverage, so teams that lean on it acquire real switching costs even though open protocols are supported.
  • Operating a self-managed high availability broker pair with disaster recovery is a specialist task, and Solace expertise is scarce in the hiring market compared with Kafka skills.
  • Event Portal and Mission Control are licensed as part of platform packages, so the governance tooling that makes an event mesh manageable is not simply included with the broker.

Pricing, plan by plan

Canary Labs

$3000/year
  • Subscription, 3,500 tags$3000/year
    • Unlimited Axiom clients
    • Unlimited Excel clients
    • Support and upgrades included
  • Perpetual, 3,500 tags$8730/one-time
    • 7,400 USD licence plus 1,330 USD first-year CustomerCare
    • CustomerCare renews at 18 percent of licence cost per year
    • Unlimited clients
  • Private cloud, 3,500 tags$12320/year
    • Hosted by Canary
    • 1,500 USD one-time setup fee per system
    • Scales to around 58,684 USD per year at 60,000 tags
  • Enterprise unlimited$undefined/year
    • Unlimited tags
    • Negotiated licensing terms
    • Quoted pricing

Solace PubSub+

Free
  • Software Event Broker StandardFree
    • Free for production within capacity limits
    • Single node, capped connections and queues
    • No vendor support
  • Solace Cloud$undefined/year
    • Managed brokers in tiers from ENT-250 to ENT-100K
    • Foundation, Accelerate and Scale platform packages
    • Fixed subscription or annual consumption drawdown
  • Software Enterprise self-managed$undefined/year
    • Deploy in your own Kubernetes, VMs or data centre
    • High availability and disaster recovery
    • Support with SLA
  • Hardware appliance$undefined/year
    • Purpose-built appliance with FPGA message offload
    • Deterministic low latency
    • Sold with support contract

Which should you pick?

Choose Canary Labs if

  • You need loss-less compression.
  • You work on Windows, Web.
  • You also want unlimited clients.
Canary Labs review

Choose Solace PubSub+ if

  • You need multi-protocol broker.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Cloud, Hardware appliance.
  • You also want dynamic message routing.
Solace PubSub+ review

Questions people ask

Is Canary Labs or Solace PubSub+ better?
Neither clearly leads. Canary Labs starts at $3000/year and Solace PubSub+ at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Canary Labs or Solace PubSub+?
Solace PubSub+ has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at $3000/year for Canary Labs and Free for Solace PubSub+.
Does Canary Labs or Solace PubSub+ run on more platforms?
Canary Labs runs on Windows, Web. Solace PubSub+ runs on Linux, Docker, Kubernetes, Cloud, Hardware appliance.
Can I use Solace PubSub+ for free?
Yes. Solace PubSub+ has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Canary Labs starts at $3000/year.
What is Canary Labs best used for?
Canary Labs is most often used for a manufacturer that needs a compliant historian but cannot justify a pi system enterprise agreement, a water utility replacing scada-embedded logging with a historian that survives the next scada replacement, an ignition site that wants long-term storage and trending without paying per-client for dashboards, a plant with regulatory data-retention obligations where swinging-door compression would not survive an audit. Of those, a manufacturer that needs a compliant historian but cannot justify a pi system enterprise agreement and a water utility replacing scada-embedded logging with a historian that survives the next scada replacement are not what Solace PubSub+ is typically brought in for.
What can Canary Labs do that Solace PubSub+ cannot?
Canary Labs covers Loss-less compression, Unlimited clients, Store and forward, Views service. Solace PubSub+ covers Multi-protocol broker, Dynamic message routing, Hardware appliance, Event Portal.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Canary Labs: What does Canary cost?

8,730 USD for a 3,500 tag perpetual system including first-year CustomerCare, or 3,000 USD a year on subscription.

Solace PubSub+: Is there a free version of Solace?

Yes, the Standard edition of the software event broker is free for production within capacity limits, with no vendor support.

Canary Labs: Are client licences extra?

No. Unlimited Axiom browser clients and unlimited Excel clients are included on every tier.

Solace PubSub+: Does Solace publish prices?

No. Cloud, software and appliance are all quoted, based on broker tier from ENT-250 to ENT-100K and licensing model.

Canary Labs: Is perpetual cheaper than subscription?

Canary states perpetual pays off after roughly three years, and after that you still pay 18 percent CustomerCare annually.

Solace PubSub+: Why buy an appliance in 2026?

Deterministic low latency with message processing offloaded to hardware, which matters in capital markets and little elsewhere.

Canary Labs: Does it use lossy compression?

No. Canary stores every collected value rather than approximating the trend, which matters for regulated data retention.

Solace PubSub+: Can it replace Kafka?

Not for log retention and stream reprocessing. It is stronger at multi-protocol routing and guaranteed delivery, and the two are often bridged.

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