Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Pusher VS Django Channels

Compare Pusher VS Django Channels and see what are their differences

Pusher logo Pusher

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

Django Channels logo Django Channels

<p>Nowadays, when every second large company has developed its own instant messenger, in the era of iMessages, Slack, Hipchat, Messager, Google Allo, Zulip and others, I will tell you how to keep up with the trend and write your own chat, using <cod…
  • Pusher Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-05
  • Django Channels Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-09-20

Pusher features and specs

  • Real-Time Capabilities
    Pusher offers real-time data transfer, enabling instant updates and live feeds without the need for page refreshes. Its WebSockets-based architecture ensures low latency communication.
  • Ease of Use
    The API is straightforward to integrate, with comprehensive documentation and SDKs for various programming languages and platforms, making implementation quick and painless.
  • Scalability
    Pusher can handle a large number of concurrent connections, making it suitable for applications that need to scale seamlessly as user demand grows.
  • Security
    Pusher provides built-in authentication and authorization options, ensuring that data is secure and accessible only to authorized users.
  • Managed Service
    As a managed service, it eliminates the need for maintaining the infrastructure for real-time functionality, freeing up resources and reducing operational complexity.

Possible disadvantages of Pusher

  • Cost
    Pusher can become expensive, especially for applications with high traffic or requiring a large number of concurrent connections, making it less suitable for startups or small-scale projects on a tight budget.
  • Vendor Lock-In
    Relying heavily on Pusher's services can lead to vendor lock-in, making it challenging to migrate to another service or in-house solution in the future.
  • Limited Offline Functionality
    Pusher is designed for real-time online communication, and it does not inherently support offline capabilities, which can be a limitation for applications that need to function without a constant internet connection.
  • Complexity for Advanced Use Cases
    While it's easy to set up for basic use cases, implementing more complex scenarios may require additional configuration and a deeper understanding of the architecture.
  • Latency
    Even though Pusher boasts low-latency communication, network conditions and geographical distances can still introduce lag, which might not be acceptable for ultra-low-latency requirements like high-frequency trading.

Django Channels features and specs

No features have been listed yet.

Pusher videos

Mark Kermode reviews Pusher

More videos:

  • Review - Pusher (1996) - Movie Review
  • Review - Film Recommendations: The Pusher Trilogy

Django Channels videos

Sam Bolgert, &quot;REST Websockets API with Django Channels&quot;, PyBay2016

More videos:

  • Tutorial - Django Channels Tutorial - 1 // Creating a chat application

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Pusher and Django Channels)
Mobile Push Messaging
93 93%
7% 7
Developer Tools
91 91%
9% 9
Web Push Notifications
100 100%
0% 0
App Development
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

Share your experience with using Pusher and Django Channels. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Pusher and Django Channels

Pusher Reviews

SignalR Alternatives
Pusher as a signal Alternative comes into the picture when it is simple and has free plans for the fallback of SSE to make the frame and log polling also available to the developers for troubleshooting as well.
Source: www.educba.com

Django Channels Reviews

  1. Gabriel Michael Ojomakpene

    It has been really awesome to keep it simple, allowing to build real time applications with python and django.

    👍 Pros:    Easy integration|Quick setup
    👎 Cons:    Little slow

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Pusher seems to be a lot more popular than Django Channels. While we know about 55 links to Pusher, we've tracked only 1 mention of Django Channels. 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.

Pusher mentions (55)

  • 5 Must-Watch Tutorials to Build Your SaaS App in 2025
    In this tutorial, you’ll create a Next.js project with TailwindCSS and build custom authentication pages for Clerk without the watermark. This means you’ll create a custom Clerk authentication component, allowing you to have a UI without the Clerk branding in the authentication component. You’ll then set up file uploads using Uploadcare and create custom theming with Shadcn UI for light and dark modes. A real-time... - Source: dev.to / 2 months ago
  • PubNub vs Pusher creating a realtime messaging app in React
    When talking about general IM applications, having the ability to speak to someone in real-time opens up the door to so many unique possibilities. Our world has become ever more connected as a result of these newfound capabilities. In todays article we will learn all about messaging as we build a real-time messaging application. The application will be able to connect to two different real-time application... - Source: dev.to / 8 months ago
  • 10 Must-Use APIs for Your Next SaaS Project
    For real-time notifications, Pusher’s APIs allow you to implement in-app notifications, chat features, and collaboration tools easily. You can find it here. - Source: dev.to / 8 months ago
  • How to Build a Real-time Chat App with Laravel, Vue.js, and Pusher
    Pusher is a cloud-hosted service that makes adding real-time functionality to applications easy. It acts as a real-time communication layer between servers and clients. This allows your backend server to instantly broadcast new data via Pusher to your Vue.js client. - Source: dev.to / 8 months ago
  • Show HN: Webhooked.email (2023)
    Feature request received! Pusher as in this thing -- https://pusher.com/ right? Any other places you want to push to? Slack? - Source: Hacker News / 9 months ago
View more

Django Channels mentions (1)

  • TypeError at /accounts/login/
    I'm following this tutorial: https://gearheart.io/blog/creating-a-chat-with-django-channels/. Source: about 4 years ago

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Pusher and Django Channels, you can also consider the following products

Socket.io - Realtime application framework (Node.JS server)

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

Pushpin - Reverse proxy for realtime web services

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.

Supabase - An open source Firebase alternative

SignalR - SignalR is a server-side software system designed for writing scalable Internet applications, notably web servers.