Realtime for Node.js

You bring the host. Horizontal scale needs Redis (or equivalent) adapter. This is not LiveKit and not a managed pub-sub. CORS, sticky sessions, and polling surprises remain your bugs.

Free pauses at the cap until the next cycle — not PAYG. Pro is $30/mo (credits + drop branding). Self-host is an Enterprise add-on, not the OSS path. Distinct from Socket.IO (you run the server) and Centrifugo (Go binary you operate).

Not a product. No hosted SKU, no pricing page, no support SLA. You bring the network layer (Liveblocks, y-websocket, your own). Distinct from Socket.IO: CRDT merge, not event fan-out.

Embeddable media router as Node module/Rust crate — not LiveKit rooms/agents product. Distinct from LiveKit.

Browser P2P WebRTC + optional free signaling — not LiveKit/mediasoup media-server rooms. Larger groups need a media server (SFU-class), not PeerJS alone. Distinct from LiveKit and mediasoup.

Node pub/sub+RPC+JWT+SCC scale-out — not Socket.IO library-only, not Soketi Pusher-protocol, not Centrifugo Go hub, not NATS messaging, not AnyCable Rails WS. Distinct from Socket.IO, Soketi, Centrifugo, NATS, and AnyCable.

Client lib only — you need a homeserver (Tuwunel etc.). Not a homeserver and not a generic WS product. Distinct from Tuwunel.

Vs Liveblocks/Yjs+Hocuspocus: room primitive on CF, not prebuilt comments/inbox SaaS. You pay Cloudflare Workers/DO usage at scale. Auth, persistence, and CRDT choice are yours. Post-acquisition roadmap rides CF.

Vs Colyseus, PartyKit, and socket.io: rooms+seats toolkit — not state-sync, not CF Durable Object rooms, not a general WS framework. Author says early/not done but in production today. Prefer GitHub package install; registry tag is pre-release only. Docs still maturing.

Vs PeerJS, Colyseus, PartyKit, and Gatho: discovery+P2P data library — not a rooms product, not a state-sync game server, not Durable Object rooms, not a process-per-room toolkit, not a PeerServer you host. NAT/TURN still bites some networks even after signaling succeeds. You still own matchmaking UX, presence policy, and anything that needs a true authoritative server.

Client library only — not a broker (that is Mosquitto/HiveMQ/etc.). Browser is MQTT-over-WebSockets only (no raw MQTT TCP from the page). You still provide a reachable broker, credentials, and topic design. Distinct from Mosquitto.