The same channel model as Bird Realtime, with five times the free connections and no paid plan.
Bird Realtime (from Bird, formerly MessageBird) and Apinator both give you public, private, presence, and cache channels with client events. Apinator is free to use, with 500 concurrent connections and 500,000 messages a day, and has no paid plan to grow into.
No paid plan, no credit card. Bird Realtime has a free plan too, and its paid plans start at $25 per month.
500 concurrent connections and 500,000 messages a day, against 100 connections and 200,000 messages a day on Bird Realtime's free plan.
Public channels, private- and presence- channels authorized by your backend, and client events for typing indicators and other transient updates.
Like Bird Realtime, cache- and private-cache- channels hand a late subscriber the last event, so state published before a client connected is not lost.
Pick the region per app so connections stay close to your users and data stays in its jurisdiction. Bird Realtime also offers the US and Europe.
Publish from Node.js, Python, Go, or PHP, and connect with the JavaScript or Swift client. pusher-js users can switch with a drop-in client.
| Feature | Apinator | Bird Realtime |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Free | Free plan, paid plans from $25/month |
| Free-tier concurrent connections | 500 | 100 |
| Free-tier messages / day | 500,000 | 200,000 |
| Public, private, presence channels | ||
| Cache channels | ||
| Encrypted channels | ||
| Client events | ||
| Webhooks | Coming soon | |
| Regions | EU + US | EU + US |
| Client SDKs | JavaScript, Swift | Browser, Swift, Kotlin/JVM |
| Server SDKs | Node.js, Python, Go, PHP | TypeScript, with Python, Go, PHP examples |
Both have a free tier. Only one has a paid tier above it.
Bird Realtime's free plan covers 100 concurrent connections and 200,000 messages per day across all of a workspace's apps, and its paid plans start at $25 per month, according to Bird's Realtime getting-started guide. Outgrow the free plan and realtime becomes a monthly line item.
Apinator is free to use, with no paid plan above the free tier. It covers 500 concurrent connections, 500,000 messages per day, 100 channels, and presence tracking up to 500 members per channel. Private, presence, and cache channels, client events, and EU or US regions are all included.
Bird figures were checked in October 2026; see Bird Realtime for current terms. For what runs underneath Apinator, read how WebSockets scale.
An honest read. Both products share the channel model Pusher made popular. Bird Realtime has a few features Apinator does not yet have; Apinator has higher free limits and no paid plan.
Completely free, no credit card required. Deploy in minutes.