Ably
English realtime messaging service built around channels and presence
Quick Overview
| Company | Ably Realtime Ltd |
|---|---|
| Category | Event Streaming Platforms |
| Headquarters | Not stated, United Kingdom |
| Founded | Not stated |
| EU Presence | Yes - United Kingdom (UK, outside the EU) |
| Data Location | Hosting not stated on the pricing page |
| Open Source | No |
| GDPR Compliant | Yes |
| Self-Hosting | No |
| Main Features | Channels, presence, connections, SDKs, free plan, usage billing |
| Pricing | Free $0 (200 connections, 200 channels, 500 messages/s, 6M messages/month, 1 day storage); Standard $29/month plus usage; Pro $399/month plus usage; Enterprise custom. Messages $2.50 per million. Prices shown in $ without a currency code. |
| Best For | Teams pushing live updates to many browser and mobile clients |
| Replaces | Confluent for live fan-out |
Detailed Review
Ably Realtime Ltd, organised under English law per its terms of service, sells a realtime messaging service. Apps publish to channels, and clients subscribe and see who is present.
The price list is public, which makes Ably easier to budget than quote-only vendors. We last read it on 3 November 2026.
How big is the Ably free plan?
The $0 plan allows 200 concurrent connections, 200 channels and 500 messages per second. It includes 6M messages a month, keeps them for one day and caps each message at 64 KiB.
What does Ably cost beyond the free tier?
Standard starts at $29 per month and Pro at $399, both plus usage. Usage runs at $2.50 per million messages, $1.00 per million minutes for channels and connections, and $0.25 per GiB of transfer.
Limitations to Consider
The free plan keeps messages for just one day and caps them at 64 KiB. Ably is not a durable event log, and its hosting regions are not stated on the pricing page. The company is British, outside the EU. For a Kafka log see Aiven.
Who Should Use Ably
Product teams that need live delivery to end-user clients and accept a vendor from England.
Pros and Cons
Pros
- Public price list with usage rates
- Free plan includes 6M messages a month
- Presence data alongside messaging
- SDKs listed on the product site
- Usage billing grows with traffic
Cons
- No replayable event history like Kafka
- One day of storage on the free plan
- Hosting region not stated
- Prices in $ without a currency code
Alternatives to Ably
Other European event streaming platforms worth comparing before you decide:
Aiven
Finland · Managed Apache Kafka in EU regions, with a free plan
Axual
Netherlands · Governed Kafka platform on an EU sovereign cloud
Lenses
United Kingdom · Developer workspace and replication layer for Kafka
Ververica
Germany · Apache Flink stream processing from the Munich company
See all European event streaming platforms or compare them directly against Confluent for live fan-out on our alternatives page.
Frequently Asked Questions
No. Ably fans messages out to clients in realtime and does not serve as a replayable event log.
6M messages a month, 200 connections, 200 channels and one day of message storage.
Ably Realtime Ltd is organised under English law, so the contracting party is British.