Pusher vs MongoDB Atlas
Realtime pub/sub WebSocket Channels + programmatic push (Beams)
vs. Managed MongoDB with search, vector, stream processing
Pricing tiers
Pusher
Beams: Sandbox
Free. 1K subscribers.
$0 base (usage-based)
Channels: Sandbox
Free. 100 concurrent conns, 200K msg/day.
$0 base (usage-based)
Beams: Startup
$29/mo. 10K subscribers.
$29/mo
Channels: Startup
$49/mo. 500 concurrent conns, 1M msg/day.
$49/mo
Channels: Pro
$99/mo. 2K concurrent conns, 4M msg/day.
$99/mo
Beams: Pro
$99/mo. 50K subscribers.
$99/mo
Beams: Business
$199/mo. 115K subscribers.
$199/mo
Channels: Business
$299/mo. 5K concurrent, 10M msg/day.
$299/mo
Beams: Premium
$399/mo. 250K subscribers.
$399/mo
Channels: Premium
$499/mo. 10K concurrent, 20M msg/day.
$499/mo
Channels: Growth
$699/mo. 15K concurrent, 40M msg/day.
$699/mo
Channels: Plus
$899/mo. 20K concurrent, 60M msg/day.
$899/mo
Channels: Growth Plus
$1,199/mo. 30K concurrent, 90M msg/day.
$1199/mo
Channels: Enterprise
Custom. 10M+ concurrent, 100B+ msg/day. SLA, dedicated support.
Custom
MongoDB Atlas
M0 — Free
Shared cluster, 512 MB storage, 100 ops/sec, 32 MB sort memory. Learning/exploration.
Free
Flex — Serverless
Autoscales 0-500 ops/sec. 5 GB storage. Pay-as-you-go, up to ~$30/mo.
$8/mo
M2 — Shared
Shared, 2 GB storage. Staging / small apps.
$9/mo
M5 — Shared
Shared, 5 GB storage.
$25/mo
M10 — Dedicated
2 GB RAM, 2 vCPU, 10-128 GB storage. First dedicated tier.
$57/mo
M20 — Dedicated
4 GB RAM, 2 vCPU, 20-256 GB storage.
$144/mo
M30 — Dedicated
8 GB RAM, 2 vCPU, 40-512 GB storage.
$389/mo
M40 — Dedicated
16 GB RAM, 4 vCPU, 80 GB-1 TB storage.
$749/mo
M50 — Dedicated
32 GB RAM, 8 vCPU, 160 GB-4 TB storage.
$1440/mo
M60 — Dedicated
64 GB RAM, 16 vCPU.
$2844/mo
M80 — Dedicated
128 GB RAM, 32 vCPU, 750 GB-4 TB.
$5256/mo
M300 — Dedicated
384 GB RAM, 96 vCPU.
$15732/mo
Enterprise
Multi-region Advanced, private network, BYOK, dedicated support.
Custom
Free-tier quotas head-to-head
Comparing be-sandbox on Pusher vs m0 on MongoDB Atlas.
| Metric | Pusher | MongoDB Atlas |
|---|---|---|
| backups | — | 0 backups |
| ops per sec | — | 100 ops/sec |
| sort memory mb | — | 32 MB |
| storage gb | — | 0.5 GB |
| subscribers | 1000 subscribers | — |
Features
Pusher · 11 features
- Beams — Push notifications for iOS/Android/Web with device interest groups.
- Beams Authenticated Users — Target users by auth user ID across devices.
- Channels — WebSocket pub/sub — realtime events, live updates, notifications.
- Channels Webhooks — Receive server-side notifications of channel activity.
- Client Events — Publish events from clients directly (triggered from browser).
- Debug Console — Live channel debugging dashboard.
- Encrypted Channels — End-to-end encrypted messages.
- Global Clusters — US, EU, AP-Southeast, etc. Pick nearest region.
- Presence Channels — Track who is online in a channel.
- Private Channels — Auth-required channels with server-signed tokens.
- Stats — Connection / message dashboards.
MongoDB Atlas · 14 features
- Atlas App Services — Backend-as-a-service: Functions, HTTPS endpoints, users + auth, sync.
- Atlas Charts — Embedded dashboards + visualizations from Atlas data.
- Atlas Database — Core MongoDB with automated backups, monitoring, scaling on AWS/Azure/GCP.
- Atlas Data Federation — Query across Atlas, S3, and HTTP endpoints in one pipeline.
- Atlas Device Sync (Realm) — Offline-first mobile DB that syncs bidirectionally with Atlas.
- Atlas Search — Apache Lucene-based full-text search integrated into MongoDB aggregation pipelin…
- Atlas Stream Processing — Continuous processing of MongoDB change streams + Kafka. Pipeline aggregations o…
- Atlas Triggers — Database change triggers, scheduled triggers. Run Atlas Functions (Node.js).
- Atlas Vector Search — Vector similarity search via $vectorSearch operator. HNSW index. Up to 4096 dims…
- BYOK Encryption — Bring your own KMS key (AWS KMS, Azure Key Vault, GCP KMS).
- Data API — Read/write via REST. Alternative to drivers for edge/serverless.
- Multi-Region Clusters — Single cluster distributed across multiple regions for HA + low latency.
- Online Archive — Tiered storage: automatic cold data movement to cheaper S3-backed storage.
- Private Networking — VPC Peering, PrivateLink, CIDR allowlist.
Developer interfaces
| Kind | Pusher | MongoDB Atlas |
|---|---|---|
| CLI | — | Atlas CLI, MongoDB Shell (mongosh) |
| SDK | Pusher Beams Android, Pusher Beams iOS, Pusher Beams Web SDK, pusher-http-go, pusher-http-java, pusher-http-php, pusher-js (client), pusher (Node), pusher (Python), pusher (Ruby), PusherSwift, pusher-websocket-java (Android) | Atlas Device SDK (Realm), MongoDB Go Driver, MongoDB Java Driver, MongoDB .NET/C# Driver, mongodb (Node driver), mongodb (Rust), pymongo |
| REST | Beams Publish API, Pusher HTTP API | Atlas Admin API, Atlas Data API |
| MCP | — | MongoDB MCP Server |
| OTHER | Channels Webhooks, Pusher WebSocket | MongoDB Compass (GUI), MongoDB Wire Protocol |
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