Facts read November 7, 2026
Cached polling (no realtime service) vs Pusher Channels
Pusher Channels is Cuely's default realtime pick when your description doesn't favor either one: simple channels for live notifications, with long-standing SDKs. Pick Cached polling (no realtime service) if you care most about viral traffic spikes.
Side by side
| Fact | Cached polling (no realtime service) | Pusher Channels |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Clients re-fetch one results endpoint every few seconds, and the host caches its answer so every player shares it. | Hosted pub/sub channels for live updates. |
| Free plan | No service to sign up for. On Vercel, a function response with Cache-Control: s-maxage is served from the CDN, and a cached response doesn't run the function; on Cloudflare Workers, cache the answer with the Cache API, and each poll is a Worker request. | Sandbox (free): 200,000 messages per day, 100 concurrent connections. |
| Paid from | Not stated | Startup: $49/month (1 million messages per day, 500 concurrent connections). |
| At 1,000 users | $0/month | $49/month |
| Open source | No | No |
| Self-hostable | Yes | No |
| Best for | Live vote percentages and leaderboards; Traffic that spikes when something is shared; Staying on one bill | Simple live notifications; Teams that know the Pusher API |
| Watch out | Players see numbers up to the cache time old (a few seconds); use a push service for chat, cursors or fast multiplayer. | The free Sandbox caps you at 100 concurrent connections. |
Where they differ
The published scores, from −3 to +3, that decide which one Cuely picks for each need.
| Need | Cached polling (no realtime service) | Pusher Channels |
|---|---|---|
| traffic comes in viral spikes | +3 Every player reads the same cached answer, so a viral day adds cheap cached requests, not connections or messages. | −3 The free Sandbox allows 100 concurrent connections; Startup is $49/month for 500. |
| keep costs as low as possible | +2 No extra vendor or bill. | −1 100 concurrent connections free, then $49/month. |
| votes, scores, leaderboards or streaks (many writes to the same numbers) | +2 Fits tallies and leaderboards that only need to be a few seconds fresh. | 0 No particular strength here. |
| realtime features | −1 Updates every few seconds rather than instantly: fine for crowd numbers, not for presence, chat or shared editing. | +1 Pub/sub channels; presence and shared state are yours to build. |
Sources: Cached polling (no realtime service) pricing (read November 9, 2026), Pusher Channels pricing (read November 7, 2026). No vendor pays for placement.