Open Source Alternatives to Ably

A realtime experience platform that provides infrastructure for building interactive applications and AI agents. It offers a suite of tools including Pub/Sub for message delivery, Chat APIs for messaging features, and AI Transport for maintaining continuous agentic sessions. The platform includes capabilities for state synchronization via LiveObjects and LiveSync, as well as collaborative environment creation through Ably Spaces. It is designed for developers building high-traffic applications in sectors such as finance, healthcare, and education. The service is deployed via SDKs for multiple languages and integrates with various cloud functions, databases, and stream processors. It utilizes a global edge network with over 700 points of presence to ensure low latency and high availability for connected devices. The platform supports multiple protocols including WebSockets, MQTT, and SSE to facilitate communication across different client types.

Whether you want to cut software costs or escape vendor lock-in, these open source alternatives to Ably give you an option you fully own. You can self-host them, so your data stays on infrastructure you control. This page lists 2 open source alternatives to Ably. The most popular are Centrifugo and AnyCable. Most use the Apache-2.0 or MIT license, and 2 offer an official Docker image.