Mural VS Ably

Compare Mural VS Ably and see what are their differences

Rating: 0 reviews

Rating: 0 reviews
Pricing: Freemium Free trial

RealityMAX

RealityMAX is the full-stack, AI-powered product visualization platform, 100% online. Turn any image into 3D in seconds, enhance your visuals with AI, and download your work or share it as interactive 3D or AR in a snap, without a line of code. sponsored

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Which is more popular?

Based on our record, Ably should be more popular than Mural. It has been mentioned 26 times since March 2021.

social mentions: 10 vs 26
Digital Whiteboard popularity: 100% vs 0%
alternatives listed: 240+ vs 226

Base details

Website, pricing, platforms and company facts side by side.

	Mural	Ably
Website	mural.co	ably.com
Pricing	Official pricing	Freemium Free trial Official pricing
Company	—	Startup from the United Kingdom · 50 - 99 employees · 2016
Listed in	Prototyping Design Collaboration Digital Whiteboard Design Tools +1	Infrastructure As A Service (IaaS) Realtime Backend / API Mobile Push Messaging Developer Tools +1

About Mural and Ably

In their own words, as submitted to SaaSHub.

Mural

Ably

No description of Mural yet.

We help teams deliver resilient AI UX and high-performance live experiences that stay fast and in sync worldwide. We provide the global realtime layer for AI agents, chat, notifications, live dashboards, and collaboration - engineered to handle peak demand without self-managed infrastructure....

Features and specs

What each product offers, as listed by its team.

Mural 6 features

Ably 8 features

Real-Time Collaboration
Mural allows multiple users to collaborate in real-time, improving team productivity and brainstorming sessions.
User-Friendly Interface
The platform features an intuitive drag-and-drop interface that makes it easy for users to create and organize content.
Wide Range of Templates
Mural offers a variety of pre-built templates for different collaborative needs, which helps to streamline the creation process.
Integration Capabilities
Mural integrates with several other productivity tools like Slack, Microsoft Teams, and JIRA, facilitating smoother workflows.
Versatile Use Cases
The tool can be used for a range of activities including brainstorming, strategy planning, agile workflows, and education, making it highly versatile.
Visual Aids and Tools
Provides various visual aids such as sticky notes, shapes, connectors, and icons that enhance the visualization and understanding of complex ideas.

Possible disadvantages

Subscription Cost
The subscription-based pricing model can be expensive for small teams or startups with a limited budget.
Learning Curve
While the interface is user-friendly, new users may still experience a learning curve to fully utilize all features and functionalities.
Internet Dependency
Mural is a cloud-based tool, which means it requires a stable internet connection for optimal performance. This can be a limitation in areas with poor connectivity.
Limited Offline Access
The platform offers limited functionality when offline, restricting users from accessing and modifying their work without an internet connection.
Complexity in Large Murals
As projects grow in size and complexity, managing and navigating large murals can become cumbersome and challenging.
Mobile App Limitations
The mobile version of Mural lacks some features available in the desktop version, which can hinder productivity for users who prefer working on mobile devices.

Scalability
Ably is designed to handle a massive number of concurrent connections and messages, making it scalable for both small and large applications.
Real-time Messaging
Ably provides robust real-time messaging capabilities with low latency, supporting use-cases like live chat, gaming, and real-time data streaming.
Global Presence
Ably has a globally distributed network, ensuring low latency and high availability for users around the world.
Advanced Features
It offers advanced features such as message history, presence, and push notifications, which can enhance the functionality of real-time applications.
Security
Ably includes built-in security features such as TLS encryption, token-based authentication, and private channels to ensure secure communication.
Extensive Documentation
The service provides extensive and well-organized documentation, making it easier for developers to integrate and utilize its features.
SDKs and Libraries
Ably offers a wide range of SDKs and libraries for different programming languages and platforms, easing the development process.
Reliable Delivery
It ensures reliable message delivery with features like message queuing and message de-duplication.

Possible disadvantages

Complexity
Due to its wide range of advanced features, the initial learning curve can be steep for new users.
Cost
For large-scale applications or extensive use of advanced features, the costs can add up, making it potentially expensive.
Vendor Lock-in
Relying heavily on Ably’s platform-specific features may result in vendor lock-in, making it challenging to switch to other services in the future.
Dependence on Internet Connection
As a cloud-based service, Ably’s performance is highly dependent on the quality and reliability of the internet connection.
Third-party Integration
While Ably offers various integration options, integrating certain third-party services may require additional custom development or may not be as seamless.

Analysis

An editorial look at what each product does well and who it suits.

Mural

Ably

Overall verdict

Mural is generally well-regarded as a robust tool for online collaboration, especially useful for teams that prioritize visual and interactive engagement. Its strength lies in its ability to enhance creativity and streamline communication across teams. While some users may find it slightly costly, its functionality and the value it brings to collaborative processes often justify the expense.

Why this product is good

Mural is a digital workspace designed to facilitate collaboration, particularly for remote and distributed teams. It offers features like digital whiteboards, visual collaboration tools, templates, and integrations with other software, making it a popular choice for generating ideas, brainstorming, and planning. Users appreciate its intuitive interface and versatility for various use cases such as workshops, design thinking processes, and project management.

Recommended for

Mural is recommended for remote teams, creative professionals, project managers, educators, and anyone involved in workshops or innovation processes. It's especially suitable for organizations that need a platform to facilitate idea generation, strategic planning, and collaborative problem-solving, regardless of their physical location.

Overall verdict

Ably is a reliable and efficient real-time messaging platform, well-suited for applications requiring high performance and scalability. It is generally well-regarded within the developer community for its ease of use and robust feature set.

Why this product is good

Features

Ably provides a comprehensive suite of features such as pub/sub messaging, presence, and history.
Security

It implements robust security practices including TLS encryption, token-based authentication, and private channels.
Integration

Supports numerous protocols and provides SDKs for various programming languages, making it easy to integrate with different systems.
Reliability

Ably offers high availability and low latency, ensuring messages are delivered in real-time.
Scalability

The platform can handle millions of active connections and is designed for horizontal scaling.

Recommended for

developers building real-time applications like chat apps, dashboards, or multiplayer games
businesses in need of a scalable solution for live updates and notifications
teams looking for a platform with strong security and compliance credentials
organizations requiring integration with existing development workflows and tools

Videos

Walkthroughs and reviews on video.

Mural 3 videos + Add

Ably 3 videos + Add

Advanced features & review / Customer Journey Mapping in Mural

Category popularity

How often each product is chosen within a category, 0–100% relative to the other.

Score bands 0–20 21–40 41–50 51–60 61–100

Mural

Ably

100% 100%

Digital Whiteboard

0% 0%

Developer Tools

100% 100%

Productivity

0% 0%

Realtime Backend / API

100% 100%

User comments

Share your experience with using Mural and Ably. For example, how are they different and which one is better?

Reviews and articles

External articles and on-site reviews we used to compare the two products.

Mural no reviews yet

Ably no reviews yet

The 11 best online whiteboards
zapier.com · Mar 2019

Remote teams who use MURAL for meetings (like Zapier), will love the digital version of some office staples, from timers (which you can use for focused ideation sprints) to chat boxes. It can be tough to share candid...
Top 10 Digital Whiteboard Software for Team Collaboration
blog.bit.ai · Feb 2019

Mural is a great platform for design teams with geographical barriers between them. Mural wants you to stop digitizing your content, rather start your work on its digital whiteboard and bounce off ideas.

We have no reviews of Ably yet. Be the first one to post

Social recommendations and mentions

Recommendations tracked on public social media and blogs since March 2021.

Mural 10 mentions

Ably 26 mentions

Google Ending Support for Jamboard Devices
Https://mural.co/ Mural has a free tier. I did not used it much but was nice. - Source: Hacker News / almost 3 years ago
Interview in 3 hours, any tips?
How you formulate your research questions e.g. Research objective generation workshop and where you store and manage your backlog e.g. mural, miro, excel, uxbacklog. Source: about 3 years ago
Escape from low maturity
Transparency of work. Whether youre using https://mural.co for collab analysis, usertesting so people can observe or something as simple as https://uxbacklog.co for a research backlog, giving visibility to the team really helps in... Source: over 3 years ago

AWS us-east-1 outage: How Ably’s multi-region architecture held up
During this week’s AWS us-east-1 outage, Ably maintained full service continuity with no customer impact. This was our multi-region architecture working exactly as designed; error rates were negligibly low and unchanged throughout. Any... - Source: dev.to / 11 months ago
Real-Time Sync Alternatives: Vaultrice vs. localStorage, DIY, Firebase, Pusher
Services like Pusher and Ably are experts in real-time messaging. They provide robust APIs for pub/sub channels, allowing you to broadcast events to clients reliably. - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
CometChat Alternatives – Comparing the Top 10 Competitors
Ably is a real-time infrastructure platform that focuses on delivering low-latency, reliable messaging across global distributed systems. It's designed for developers building event-driven applications, including chat, but also supports... - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago

Alternatives to Mural and Ably

When comparing Mural and Ably, you can also consider the following products.

Miro
Join Millions of users that collaborate from all over the planet using Miro. Experience the power of the #1 visual workspace for innovation. More than 100M users and 250,000 companies are collaborating on the canvas.

Compare Miro to Mural or Ably:

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

Compare Pusher to Mural or Ably:

Pusher vs Mural Pusher vs Ably
Figma
Team-based interface design, Figma lets you collaborate on designs in real time.

Compare Figma to Mural or Ably:

Figma vs Mural Figma vs Ably
Socket.io
Realtime application framework (Node.JS server)

Compare Socket.io to Mural or Ably:

Socket.io vs Mural Socket.io vs Ably
Axure
The most powerful way to plan, prototype and hand off to developers, all without code. Download a free trial and see why professionals choose Axure RP 9.

Compare Axure to Mural or Ably:

Axure vs Mural Axure vs Ably
PubNub
PubNub is a real-time messaging system for web and mobile apps that can handle API for all platforms and push messages to any device anywhere in the world in a fraction of a second without having to worry about proxies, firewalls or mobile drop-offs.

Compare PubNub to Mural or Ably:

PubNub vs Mural PubNub vs Ably