Centrifugo
Message queue (MQ) software
- Features
- Ease of use
- Ease of management
- Quality of support
- Affordability
- Market presence
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What is Centrifugo
Centrifugo is an open-source real-time messaging server that provides publish/subscribe messaging over WebSocket (and related transports) for delivering events to web and mobile clients. It is typically used by application teams to add live updates such as chat, notifications, presence, and streaming UI events without building a custom WebSocket infrastructure. The product focuses on client connection management, channel-based authorization, and horizontal scaling, and it can integrate with external brokers (for example, Redis) for message fan-out across nodes.
WebSocket-first pub/sub delivery
Centrifugo is designed specifically for pushing messages to connected clients over WebSocket and similar transports, which fits interactive application use cases. It provides server-side channel concepts and supports publishing events into those channels from backend services. This makes it practical for chat, notifications, dashboards, and collaborative UI updates where low-latency fan-out matters.
Built-in auth and presence
Centrifugo includes mechanisms for authenticating client connections and authorizing subscriptions to channels, typically via JWT or backend-provided tokens. It also supports features commonly needed in real-time apps such as presence and join/leave events. These capabilities reduce the amount of custom code required compared with using a general-purpose broker alone.
Scales via broker integration
Centrifugo supports running multiple nodes and using an external system (commonly Redis) to distribute publications across instances. This enables horizontal scaling and high availability patterns for real-time delivery. It also allows teams to keep application publishing logic separate from the client connection layer.
Not a general MQ broker
Centrifugo primarily targets real-time client messaging rather than durable, server-to-server queuing. It does not aim to replace enterprise MQ features such as complex routing, long-term retention, or transactional delivery semantics. Organizations needing durable event streaming or classic queue patterns often pair it with another messaging system.
Operational complexity at scale
Running Centrifugo in production typically requires planning around load balancing, connection limits, and state distribution across nodes. When using Redis (or another backend) for scaling, that dependency becomes part of the availability and performance profile. Capacity planning for large numbers of concurrent WebSocket connections can be non-trivial.
Feature scope tied to realtime use
The product’s feature set is oriented around channels, subscriptions, and client connection lifecycle rather than broad integration workflows. Teams looking for extensive connectors, transformation, or orchestration capabilities will need additional integration tooling. Some advanced messaging requirements (e.g., complex replay/retention policies) are outside its core scope.
Plan & Pricing
| Plan | Price | Key features & notes |
|---|---|---|
| Centrifugo (OSS) | Free | Open-source (Apache License 2.0), self-hosted real-time messaging server; available as binary, Docker image, Helm chart and packages; no license key required. |
| Centrifugo PRO | Custom pricing — contact sales | Commercial (PRO) edition with additional enterprise features (channel/user tracing, ClickHouse analytics, operation throttling, push notification API, user/status/connections APIs, token revocation, channel capabilities/patterns, performance improvements). Requires a license key to run without limits; licenses are provided to corporate customers and pricing is flat based on company size/role. PRO can be run in a free sandbox mode (limits: up to 20 concurrent connections, up to 2 nodes, up to 10 API rps). |
