About Liveblocks
Liveblocks is a commercial developer platform for building collaborative experiences, similar to what users see in tools like shared documents and design editors. It supplies the backend pieces needed for people to see each other's presence and edit shared state together, so product teams do not have to engineer these systems themselves.
Typical capabilities include live cursors and presence, shared data storage that merges simultaneous edits, threaded comments and notifications. It provides client libraries, including React hooks, as well as integrations for popular editor frameworks. It is hosted infrastructure that teams connect to from their own front ends, suited to SaaS products adding multiplayer editing, review or commenting.
Key features
- Presence and live cursors
- Shared state that merges concurrent edits
- Threaded comments inside applications
- Notifications for mentions and replies
- React hooks and client libraries
- Integrations with rich text editor frameworks
Good fit for
- →Adding multiplayer editing to a SaaS product
- →In-app commenting and review workflows
- Tags
- collaboration
- real-time
- presence
- comments
- multiplayer
- sdk
- react
Liveblocks: questions and answers
- What is Liveblocks used for?
- Liveblocks provides infrastructure for real-time collaboration, presence and comments, so teams can add multiplayer features to their own web applications. It is a good fit for adding multiplayer editing to a SaaS product, and in-app commenting and review workflows.
- Is Liveblocks free?
- Yes. Liveblocks has a free plan, and paid plans start at $25 per month.
- Is Liveblocks open source?
- No. Liveblocks is proprietary (closed-source) software and can't be self-hosted. Open-source alternatives to Liveblocks include Centrifugo and Deepstream.io.
- What are some alternatives to Liveblocks?
- Liveblocks competes with Pusher, Ably and PubNub. For open-source options, see Enlisted's ranked list of open-source Liveblocks alternatives.
Open-source alternatives to Liveblocks
See all
Centrifugo
Backend as a Service
Centrifugo is an open-source real-time messaging server — a self-hosted alternative to Pub
Apache-2.0vs Pusher★ 11k
Deepstream.io
Backend as a Service
deepstream.io server
MITvs Pusher★ 7.2k
OpenIM
Backend as a Service
IM Chat OpenClaw
Apache-2.0vs Sendbird★ 17k
WuKongIM
Backend as a Service
More than just IM 不只是即时通讯(IM)
Apache-2.0vs Sendbird★ 5k
JuggleIM
Backend as a Service
IM Chat, High-performance, scalable, self-hosted instant messaging server in Go — private
Apache-2.0vs Sendbird★ 3.5k
Medplum
Backend as a Service
Medplum is a healthcare platform that helps you quickly develop high-quality compliant app
Apache-2.0★ 2.7k
SaaS alternatives to Liveblocks
See all
Pusher
Backend as a Service
Hosted WebSocket channels and push notifications for realtime features
SaaS
Ably
Backend as a Service
Realtime messaging platform with pub/sub, presence and message history
SaaS
PubNub
Backend as a Service
Realtime messaging and presence APIs for chat, IoT and live apps
SaaS
Firebase
Backend as a Service
Firebase is Google's mobile and web app development platform, bundling authentication, databases, hosting, messaging and analytics as a managed backend.
SaaS
Stream
Backend as a Service
Chat, activity feeds, video and moderation APIs for in-app social features
SaaS
Sendbird
Backend as a Service
Chat, voice and video APIs and SDKs for in-app messaging
SaaS

