Ably

Realtime messaging platform

Free tier + paidRealtime, comments & collabably.com

What it is

Global realtime messaging platform with pub/sub channels, presence, message history and connection state recovery so a client that drops offline resumes without gaps. Integrations fan channel data out to webhooks, serverless functions, Kafka and queues. Multi-region by default, with a far larger free allowance than most competitors.

Why it earns a slot

Reach for it when dropped or out-of-order messages would genuinely break something — live scores, an auction, a running liveblog. History rewind after a reconnect is the feature you cannot easily rebuild, and 6M free messages monthly is generous.

Know before you commit

Usage is billed on three separate meters — messages, connection-minutes and channel-minutes — so idle-but-open browser tabs cost money even when nothing is being published. Forecasting the bill takes real modelling rather than a headline price.

Getting started

npm i ably

Field notes

0 from the community

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Field check

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Pricing snapshot

Free: 6M messages/mo, 200 concurrent connections, 200 channels, 500 msg/sec. Standard $29/mo plus usage (10k connections, 10k channels); Pro $399/mo plus usage (50k). Usage: $2.50 per million messages, $1.00 per million connection-minutes, $0.25/GiB transfer

Snapshots move fast — verify at checkout, and post a field note if it changed.

Drop into your Lovable chat

Evaluate Ably (https://ably.com) for this project, then use it only if it fits what we are already building.
Context: Realtime messaging platform. Global realtime messaging platform with pub/sub channels, presence, message history and connection state recovery so a client that drops offline resumes without gaps. Integrations fan channel data out to webhooks, serverless functions, Kafka and queues. Multi-region by default, with a far larger free allowance than most competitors.
Reviewer notes (general, not written for this codebase): Reach for it when dropped or out-of-order messages would genuinely break something — live scores, an auction, a running liveblog. History rewind after a reconnect is the feature you cannot easily rebuild, and 6M free messages monthly is generous.
Watch out for: Usage is billed on three separate meters — messages, connection-minutes and channel-minutes — so idle-but-open browser tabs cost money even when nothing is being published. Forecasting the bill takes real modelling rather than a headline price.
Pricing: Free: 6M messages/mo, 200 concurrent connections, 200 channels, 500 msg/sec. Standard $29/mo plus usage (10k connections, 10k channels); Pro $399/mo plus usage (50k). Usage: $2.50 per million messages, $1.00 per million connection-minutes, $0.25/GiB transfer
Setup: npm i ably
Rules: treat the notes above as background only. Do not assume a theme, style, layout or feature that is not already in this project — inspect the existing code first and ask me before changing visual direction.

/api/public/tools/ably

Neighbourhood

How Ably sits against the rest of the atlas — swaps, companions and the tools builders actually save alongside it.

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