Facts read November 7, 2026
Liveblocks vs Supabase Realtime
Liveblocks is Cuely's default realtime pick when your description doesn't favor either one: rooms, presence and shared state for collaborative boards and documents, with React hooks. Pick Supabase Realtime if you care most about fewer vendors.
Side by side
| Fact | Liveblocks | Supabase Realtime |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Hosted realtime collaboration: rooms, presence, shared state, comments. | Broadcast, presence and database change streams, part of a Supabase project. |
| Free plan | Free: unlimited monthly active users, 500 monthly active rooms, 10 simultaneous connections per room, 3,000 realtime collaboration minutes. | Free plan: 200 concurrent peak connections and 2 million messages per month. |
| Paid from | Pro: $25/month billed annually. | Supabase Pro: from $25/month. |
| At 1,000 users | $0/month | $0/month |
| Open source | No | Yes |
| Self-hostable | No | Yes |
| Best for | Collaborative boards, whiteboards and documents; Presence and live cursors; React apps | Apps already on Supabase; Live updates from database changes; Chat and presence |
| Watch out | The free plan allows 10 simultaneous connections per room and 500 monthly active rooms. | Shared state and conflict handling for collaborative editing are yours to build. |
Where they differ
The published scores, from −3 to +3, that decide which one Cuely picks for each need.
| Need | Liveblocks | Supabase Realtime |
|---|---|---|
| fewer vendors | 0 No particular strength here. | +3 Comes with the Supabase database and auth. |
| prefers open source or self-hosting | 0 No particular strength here. | +2 Open source and self-hostable with the rest of Supabase. |
| realtime features | +3 Rooms, presence and conflict-free shared state are the product. | +2 Broadcast, presence and Postgres change streams. |
| Next.js or React | +1 React hooks and Next.js examples. | 0 No particular strength here. |
| sells to businesses (organizations, roles, SSO) | +1 A room per team session maps well onto team tools. | 0 No particular strength here. |
| traffic comes in viral spikes | −1 Built for rooms of collaborators (10 at once per room on Free), not one broadcast to a crowd. | −2 Free allows 200 concurrent connections and 100 messages a second; a viral day passes that in minutes. |
| native iOS or Android app | 0 No particular strength here. | +1 Works from the same Supabase client in React Native. |
Sources: Liveblocks pricing (read November 7, 2026), Supabase Realtime pricing (read November 7, 2026). No vendor pays for placement.