# PubNub vs Pusher Channels (slim)

> PubNub scores 68.1 (B) to Pusher Channels's 51.9 (D) for realtime events. Prices, MCP, x402, uptime and agent notes side by side.

- Full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pubnub-vs-pusher-channels.md (~2,400 tokens) · this version ~730 tokens · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pubnub-vs-pusher-channels.json · canonical https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/pubnub-vs-pusher-channels
- 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 Pusher Channels's 51.9 (D), and leads in 6 of 7 scored categories. Pusher Channels leads on transparency & trust. Both do realtime events.

- PubNub: B 68.1, rank #230 of 950 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/pubnub.min.md
- Pusher Channels: D 51.9, rank #744 of 950 · https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/pusher-channels.min.md
- 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 Reliability, 76 against 63; Schema & documentation, 77 against 35; Agent ergonomics, 71 against 45; Security & auth, 63 against 52; Payments & pricing, 40 against 30; Maintenance & community, 83 against 76. Also Runs on your own machine.
- Pusher Channels, good for Pushing live updates from a server to browsers and mobile apps, with presence and server-signed private channels. Ahead on Transparency & trust, 78 against 64.

| Category | PubNub | Pusher Channels |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability (16%) | 76 | 63 |
| Performance (10%) | pending | pending |
| Schema & documentation (13%) | 77 | 35 |
| Agent ergonomics (13%) | 71 | 45 |
| Security & auth (14%) | 63 | 52 |
| Payments & pricing (10%) | 40 | 30 |
| Task success (10%) | pending | pending |
| Maintenance & community (7%) | 83 | 76 |
| Transparency & trust (7%) | 64 | 78 |

| Fact (where they differ) | PubNub | Pusher Channels |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Vendor | PubNub Inc. | Pusher Ltd (a Bird company) |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://ps.pndsn.com` | `https://api-<cluster>.pusher.com` |
| Transports | HTTP, stdio | HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API key |
| Licence | 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 | Proprietary service under Bird's general terms and product specific terms. The client and server libraries on GitHub are MIT |
| Tools exposed | 17 | none |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| MCP registry | `io.github.pubnub/mcp-server` | not listed |
| Last release | 2026-09-22 | 2026-10-02 |
| Terms last updated | 2023-05-05 | 2024-11-21 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-04-01 | 2026-08-31 |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | not found in the text |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | yes |
| Popularity | 284k npm/wk | 2.2k stars, 1.4M npm/wk, 638k PyPI/wk |