Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

GetStream.io VS Socket.io

Compare GetStream.io VS Socket.io and see what are their differences

Note: These products don't have any matching categories. If you think this is a mistake, please edit the details of one of the products and suggest appropriate categories.

GetStream.io logo GetStream.io

APIs for the development of scalable newsfeeds and chat applications.

Socket.io logo Socket.io

Realtime application framework (Node.JS server)
  • GetStream.io Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-06-30
  • Socket.io Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-21

GetStream.io

$ Details
paid
Platforms
iOS Android REST API Cross Platform
Release Date
2014 January
Startup details
Country
United States
State
Colorado
City
Boulder
Founder(s)
Thierry Schellenbach
Employees
100 - 249

Socket.io

Website
socket.io
Pricing URL
-
$ Details
Platforms
-
Release Date
-

GetStream.io features and specs

  • Scalability
    GetStream.io is designed to handle large-scale applications with ease, making it suitable for both small projects and enterprise-level implementations.
  • Real-time Updates
    Provides robust real-time functionalities, allowing for instant updates and notifications, which is crucial for chat applications and activity feeds.
  • Flexibility
    Offers a wide variety of SDKs and APIs for different programming languages, giving developers the flexibility to integrate the services within a wide range of applications.
  • Feature-rich
    Includes features like user authentication, image processing, moderation tools, analytics, and more, providing a comprehensive solution for social feeds and chat functionalities.
  • Security
    Implements robust security measures like JWT (JSON Web Tokens) for ensuring secure communication between clients and servers.
  • Documentation and Support
    Offers extensive documentation and dedicated customer support, helping developers to efficiently integrate and troubleshoot the service.

Possible disadvantages of GetStream.io

  • Complex Pricing
    The pricing model can be complex and may become expensive for large-scale implementations, which could be a deterrent for some businesses.
  • Initial Learning Curve
    Can have a steep initial learning curve, especially for developers who are not familiar with real-time technologies or the specific APIs provided by GetStream.io.
  • Dependency
    Relying on an external service for critical application features introduces dependency risks, such as uptime dependency and potential service changes.
  • Latency
    Depending on user locations and service regions, there might be latency issues, which could impact the real-time performance for some users.
  • Customization Limits
    While feature-rich, there might be limitations on customization options if the provided functionalities do not align perfectly with specific use-case requirements.

Socket.io features and specs

  • Real-time Communication
    Socket.io provides real-time bidirectional event-based communication, which is essential for applications requiring instant data exchange, such as chat applications, live notifications, and multiplayer games.
  • Cross-browser Compatibility
    Socket.io abstracts the differences between various web socket implementations across different browsers, ensuring consistent performance and compatibility.
  • Fallback Support
    If WebSocket support is unavailable, Socket.io seamlessly falls back to other communication protocols such as long-polling, ensuring reliable connections.
  • Event-driven Architecture
    Socket.io uses an event-driven approach, which simplifies the handling of complex real-time interactions through named events that can be easily managed and debugged.
  • Scalability Options
    Socket.io can be effectively integrated with scaling solutions like Redis, which allows horizontal scaling and ensures that messages are correctly distributed among multiple server instances.
  • Easy to Use
    Socket.io offers a straightforward API, making it easier for developers to implement real-time communication without deep knowledge of the underlying protocols.
  • Built-in Room and Namespace Support
    With built-in support for rooms and namespaces, Socket.io allows more organized and efficient handling of events and connections within distinct channels or groups.

Possible disadvantages of Socket.io

  • Overhead
    Due to the abstraction layer that Socket.io provides, there is additional overhead compared to using raw WebSockets, which might affect performance in high-demand scenarios.
  • Complexity
    Although Socket.io simplifies many aspects of real-time communication, handling its scalability, especially in large applications, can become complex and might require additional infrastructure setup.
  • Version Compatibility
    Different versions of the Socket.io client and server may sometimes face compatibility issues, leading to potential communication problems if not all parts of the application are upgraded simultaneously.
  • Increased Latency
    In scenarios where Socket.io falls back to long-polling or other techniques, the latency is inherently higher compared to a direct WebSocket connection.
  • Dependency on Additional Libraries
    Socket.io relies on additional libraries and dependencies for its functionality. These dependencies can sometimes introduce vulnerabilities or require updates that may affect server stability.
  • Inadequate for Simple Use Cases
    For projects with simple real-time requirements, the added features and abstractions of Socket.io might be overkill, leading to unnecessary complexity.

GetStream.io videos

Reviewing Your Twitch Channels LIVE - STREAM REVIEW EP14

More videos:

  • Review - Do you REALLY need a Stream Deck? - Elgato Stream Deck XL Review & Explanation
  • Review - Ninja Reviews the Elgato Stream Deck

Socket.io videos

Review And Demonstration - Socket.io - Antiumadam

More videos:

  • Review - Modern Day CMS - Part #3 - Code Review: The Backend - NodeJS, Socket.io and Passport Authentication.
  • Review - 🎆| Adding new features to isitnewyearsday.com | Node.js, Express, Socket.io and Vue.js

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to GetStream.io and Socket.io)
APIs
100 100%
0% 0
Developer Tools
0 0%
100% 100
Productivity
100 100%
0% 0
Mobile Push Messaging
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare GetStream.io and Socket.io

GetStream.io Reviews

We have no reviews of GetStream.io yet.
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Socket.io Reviews

Top 10 Best Node. Js Frameworks to Improve Web Development
It is a web-socket composition that is accessed by different languages of programming. Socket.io in NodeJS allows creating web socket applications such as score tickers, chatbots, dashboard APIs, including others. Moreover, it has significant benefits over the general Node.js frameworks.
Top Node.js Frameworks To Use In 2021
Socket.io is a Javascript framework used to construct real-time apps and facilitate two-way communication between the client-side and servers. It uses functional reactive programming. You can construct applications with WebSocket development requirements with this library framework. For instance, messaging apps like Whatsapp continuously run to update live and refresh...
Top 14 Node.JS Frameworks: Which Will Rule in 2020?
In Node.js, Socket.io allows building web socket apps such as dashboard APIs, score tickets, chatbots, and others. It has great benefits over the regular Node.JS web app frameworks.

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Socket.io seems to be a lot more popular than GetStream.io. While we know about 734 links to Socket.io, we've tracked only 36 mentions of GetStream.io. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

GetStream.io mentions (36)

  • Ask HN: Who is hiring? (April 2025)
    Company: Stream https://getstream.io/ We are consistently hiring backend engineers ranging from Senior level to Staff / Lead / Director / Principal Go engineers. If you have experience with a different tech stack, we offer a 10-week onboarding program to train you in Go, scaling and other key topics: https://tinyurl.com/2u5x9f9w At Stream, we use Go for our video SFU, chat API, Moderation and Feeds, serving high... - Source: Hacker News / about 1 month ago
  • Ask HN: Who is hiring? (March 2025)
    FYI, Your website (https://getstream.io/) is broken :-) Application error: a client-side exception has occurred (see the browser console for more information). - Source: Hacker News / 2 months ago
  • Ask HN: Who is hiring? (March 2025)
    Stream | Golang Staff Engineer | On-site: Amsterdam/Boulder/Skopje (sometimes remote) Stream (https://getstream.io/) provides APIs for building in-app chat, feeds and realtime video. We do this for over a billion end users, and thousands of apps such as Nextdoor, Strava, Gojek, Alfagift and others Looking for Go engineers of all levels, and in particular staff and above. Also very happy to train people on Go if... - Source: Hacker News / 2 months ago
  • Ask HN: Who is hiring? (March 2025)
    Company: Stream https://getstream.io/ We are hiring backend engineers ranging from Senior level to Staff / Lead / Director / Principal Go engineers. If you have experience with a different tech stack, we offer a 10-week onboarding program to train you in Go, scaling and other key topics: https://tinyurl.com/2u5x9f9w At Stream, we use Go for our video SFU, chat API, Moderation and Feeds, serving high traffic from... - Source: Hacker News / 2 months ago
  • Building a Slack Clone with Next.js and TailwindCSS - Part One
    Stream is a platform that allows developers to add rich chat and video features to their applications. Instead of dealing with the complexity of creating chat and video from the ground up, Stream provides APIs and SDKs to help you add them quickly and easily. - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
View more

Socket.io mentions (734)

  • Mastering WebSockets with Socket.IO: A Comprehensive Guide
    In line 32 we have the socket.io editaData event which handles data editing in the server. When the user clicks edit in the client, the server searches for the data using the findIndex method. If it exists it updates the data in the crudData array then it broadcasts the edited data to the client. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • Tools for Building a Modern JavaScript Booking Application
    Tools like Socket.IO and WebSockets significantly simplify the implementation of real-time communication between client and server. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • Custom Angular and Karma Test Extension for VS Code
    To capture the test execution status, I wrote a custom karma reporter(a good resource) with which I was able to emit the test execution status back to the vscode extension. I am using socket.io to do this communication. - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
  • Stop sharing your screen, start sharing your website
    Building such experiences is already possible, using libraries such as socket.io and React Together. This blog post explains how to easily add real-time collaboration to an existing React app, using React Together. - Source: dev.to / 4 months ago
  • SSE, WebSockets, or Polling? Build a Real-Time Stock App with React and Hono
    Complexity: WebSockets require you to handle connection lifecycle events, such as errors and reconnections. While the code example I provided could suffice for simple use cases, more complex use cases might arise, like automatic reconnection and queueing messages sent by the client when the connection wasn't open. For that, you can either extend this code or use an external library like react-use-websocket for a... - Source: dev.to / 6 months ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing GetStream.io and Socket.io, you can also consider the following products

SendBird - SendBird is messaging-as-a-service.

Firebase - Firebase is a cloud service designed to power real-time, collaborative applications for mobile and web.

Ethora - Ethora: Seamlessly build, deploy, and manage web2 & Web3 applications with no-code solutions.

Pusher - Pusher is a hosted API for quickly, easily and securely adding scalable realtime functionality via WebSockets to web and mobile apps.

ZmURL - Build a beautiful page for your Zoom event in 2 minutes

Histats - Start tracking your visitors in 1 minute!