# Centrifugo vs PubNub (slim)

> PubNub scores 68.1 (B) to Centrifugo's 63.1 (B) for realtime events. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/centrifugo-vs-pubnub.md (~2,300 tokens) · this version ~780 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/centrifugo-vs-pubnub.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/centrifugo-vs-pubnub
- Index: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt · API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json · Updated: 2026-10-09

PubNub scores 68.1 (B) on agent readiness against Centrifugo's 63.1 (B), and leads in 2 of 7 scored categories. Centrifugo leads on reliability, agent ergonomics and payments & pricing. Both do realtime events.

- Centrifugo: B 63.1, rank #407 of 950 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/centrifugo.min.md
- PubNub: B 68.1, rank #230 of 950 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/pubnub.min.md
- Centrifugo, good for A team that wants to run its own realtime channel server and publish to browsers and apps from any backend, with history, recovery and presence. Ahead on Reliability, 86 against 76; Agent ergonomics, 76 against 71; Payments & pricing, 60 against 40. Also Open source.
- PubNub, good for Live fan-out to many connected clients with presence and history, and for an agent that manages a PubNub account through MCP. Ahead on Security & auth, 63 against 37; Transparency & trust, 64 against 56. Also A hosted endpoint, with nothing to install; Runs on your own machine; Free to start without a card; No incidents deducted, where Centrifugo loses 6 points for them.

| Category | Centrifugo | PubNub |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 86 | 76 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 81 | 77 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 76 | 71 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 37 | 63 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 60 | 40 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 86 | 83 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 56 | 64 |

| Fact (where they differ) | Centrifugo | PubNub |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | Centrifugal Labs LTD | PubNub Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | no (local only) | `https://ps.pndsn.com` |
| Transports | HTTP | HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | API key | OAuth or key |
| Pricing | Free | Freemium |
| Licence | Apache-2.0 for the open-source server. Centrifugo PRO is a closed commercial build under the Centrifugo PRO Licence Agreement | Proprietary service under PubNub's Terms and Conditions. The SDKs and the MCP server on GitHub are source-available under the PubNub Software Development Kit Licence Agreement, which is not an OSI licence |
| Tools exposed | none | 17 |
| MCP registry | not listed | `io.github.pubnub/mcp-server` |
| Last release | 2026-09-28 | 2026-09-22 |
| Terms last updated | no document linked | 2023-05-05 |
| Privacy policy last updated | no document linked | 2026-04-01 |
| Customer content may train models |  | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access |  | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking |  | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice |  | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver |  | not found in the text |
| Popularity | 11k stars | 284k npm/wk |