Centrifugo vs Novu
| Tagline | Language-agnostic real-time messaging server over WebSocket and SSE | Open-source notification infrastructure for multi-channel developer alerts |
| Category | Team Chat & Collaboration | Team Chat & Collaboration |
| Replaces | Slack, Microsoft Teams | Slack, Microsoft Teams |
| GitHub stars | 10k | 39k |
| Language | Go | Docker |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Self-host difficulty | 3/5 Moderate | 3/5 Moderate |
| Deploy options | Docker Docker Compose Kubernetes Manual | Docker Docker Compose |
| Managed hosting | ||
| Last updated | 2 days ago | today |
| View repo | View repo |
Where each falls short
The honest trade-offs — what you give up with each, versus the proprietary tools they replace.
Centrifugo
- Developer-facing infrastructure component, not an end-user chat application; requires custom UI.
- Managed hosting (Centrifugal Cloud) is still early and not yet a full Pusher replacement in pricing.
- Persistent message storage requires an external database; Centrifugo only provides a short-term history buffer.
- No built-in admin UI for channel management or user monitoring beyond basic metrics.
Novu
- Not a real-time team chat; it is a notification delivery layer, not a conversation platform.
- Self-hosted setup requires Postgres, MongoDB, Redis, and S3-compatible storage, adding operational burden.
- Managed cloud features (advanced analytics, SLA guarantees) are not available in the open-source edition.
- Mobile SDK for in-app notifications has fewer features than commercial equivalents like OneSignal.
Bottom line
Both are a similar lift to self-host; choose Novu for the larger community and ecosystem. Novu has seen more recent development. Open each guide below for deploy steps and the full feature gap.