Stream vs. CometChat
Compare Stream and CometChat across SDKs, scale, reliability, pricing, and more.
- 5Mvs. 1M+Concurrent connections in a single channel
- <40 msvs. <50 msAverage chat latency
- No limitvs. 6 monthsMessage history through the API
- 1B+vs. 126M+End users
The short answer.
Stream is the stronger choice when chat has to hold up at scale. It has been benchmarked at 5 million concurrent connections in a single channel with average latency under 40 ms, keeps message history accessible for as long as your plan is active, includes offline support, and has no hard channel limits. Enterprise plans offer a 99.999% uptime SLA. Video, Activity Feeds, and Moderation come from the same vendor if you need them later.
CometChat may make more sense if you're an India-based company that needs a simple chat product for a small audience, or if you specifically need support for Vue, Ionic, or WordPress.
Side-by-side.
Who builds with each platform.
Stream's logos span all eight industries below across 2,000+ global apps, from consumer apps like Strava and Bumble to enterprise names like eBay and Kalshi. CometChat's list covers five industries, with no logos in fintech, sports, or gaming. Many of its listed customers (NoBroker, Shaadi.com, Times Internet, and Larsen & Toubro) are based in India.
Logos are from each company's website as of October 2026. "None listed" means no logo in that industry is shown.
Chat SDK quality.
We compared the two iOS SDKs on 11 points, from source access to UI design.
- Android Chat SDK: 1,700 stars
- React Native Chat SDK: 1,200 stars
- iOS Chat SDK: 972 stars
- Android Chat SDK: 765 stars
- React Native Chat SDK: 927 stars
- iOS Chat SDK: 627 stars
GitHub stars as of October 2026.
Connection speed from real networks.
CometChat advertises 35+ edge locations but doesn't list them. Its own help center documents shared servers in three regions, India, Ireland, and the US, on Linode.
We measured time to first byte from home internet connections in seven countries, comparing Stream's nearest edge with CometChat's fastest region. Stream connected 3.7x to 14x faster in Brazil, the UK, Japan, Singapore, and Australia. In the US the two were about even, and in India, where CometChat has a server region, results varied.
Time to first byte, in milliseconds.
Integration paths.
CometChat offers four ways to integrate: a no-code widget, a low-code builder, UI Kits, and SDKs. Stream is built for teams integrating in code, with more control over how much UI you build.
"We chose Stream because of its ease of integration, impressive documentation, and robust feature catalog. It only took one developer a few hours to integrate the React Native SDK into the app."
"We ultimately chose Stream because of the pricing, SDKs, documentation completeness, and ease of integration."
Chat price at 10,000 MAU.
CometChat Basic
$299
per month, billed annually
Chat, push, basic moderation; message history limited to the last 6 months through the API
CometChat Advanced
$399
per month, billed annually
Adds AI moderation, multi-tenancy, HIPAA
Stream Start
$399
per month, billed annually
Offline support, advanced moderation and filters, data export; message history for as long as your plan is active
Stream Elevate
$599
per month, billed annually
Adds multi-tenancy, HIPAA, translation, advanced search
Prices per month, billed annually, verified October 2026 from cometchat.com/pricing. Multi-tenancy isn't Enterprise-only at either vendor: it's included on CometChat Advanced and Stream Elevate.
At 10,000 MAU, CometChat Basic costs $100 less per month than Stream Start, and it includes less. Message history is only accessible for the last 6 months, there is no built-in offline storage, and moderation is basic. Stream Start keeps history for as long as your plan is active and adds offline support and advanced moderation and filters. It also has no hard channel limits, where CometChat caps groups at 100,000 members.
Both platforms charge for usage beyond their plan limits. Stream charges $0.09 per additional MAU and $0.99 per additional concurrent connection, compared with CometChat's starting rates of $0.10 and $1.00.
Free plans.
Both Stream and CometChat offer a free plan for developers. Stream's Build plan covers 1,000 MAU, ten times CometChat's 100 MAU, and includes 100 concurrent connections, with no credit card required.
"Stream's transparent pricing model eased our early burn and gave us room to grow."
What's billed separately.
Stream Video and Moderation are billed on usage, and Stream publishes every rate, so there are no hidden fees.
Stream Moderation costs $2.00 per 1,000 messages, $4.00 per 1,000 images, $0.80 per minute of video, and $4.00 per 1,000 live-video frames. CometChat has no equivalent.
Stream bills video at the quality each participant receives, and the pricing guide explains how multiple video tracks are counted.
Support and data sovereignty.
Stream provides 24/7 Enterprise support with personnel in each region where it hosts data, helping customers meet data sovereignty requirements and major compliance frameworks such as GDPR and HIPAA. CometChat advertises 24/7 support, but its public documentation doesn't say where its support staff is based or whether they can access data stored in another region.
If your data must stay in-region, ask each vendor where their support is located and who can access your data.
Beyond chat: what each platform covers.
Stream and CometChat both provide APIs and SDKs for in-app chat and calling. Stream is built for products that keep growing and need more over time.
Video
CometChat supports small-scale 1:1 and group video calling. It recommends up to 50 participants per video call, and its presenter mode allows up to 100 participants, with a maximum of 5 sharing video. For large events and broadcasts, CometChat offers its partner Daily.
Stream's video is benchmarked to 1M+ concurrent participants. Its dedicated livestreaming product supports 100K+ viewers over RTMP ingest and HLS playback, with chat alongside the stream. Stream also offers audio rooms and transcription.
For vision AI, Stream offers Vision Agents, an open-source Python framework for real-time voice and video AI agents, with models from 25+ providers. CometChat has no equivalent.
Activity feeds
Stream provides a dedicated Activity Feeds API for social feeds, notification feeds, comments, reactions, follows, ranking, and personalization.
CometChat does not offer an equivalent activity feeds product.
Moderation
Stream Moderation works across text, images, audio, and video, with configurable policies, automated detection, review queues, and tooling for human moderators. On production traffic it handles 1,500+ text classification requests per second at its daily peak, with API latency of 50 ms or lower for text, image, and live-video traffic.
CometChat provides moderation for chat, including AI-powered moderation on higher-tier plans, but does not offer a standalone, multi-modal moderation product.
When CometChat is the better pick.
Stream is the stronger choice for most teams building chat, video, feeds, and moderation at scale, but in two cases CometChat may be a better fit.
You need a framework Stream doesn't support.
CometChat offers SDKs or integrations for Vue, Ionic, and WordPress.
Your priority is the lowest upfront chat price.
At 10,000 MAU, CometChat Basic starts at $299/month, compared with $399/month for Stream Start, though it offers fewer features, has documented limits on group size, and uses shared servers in only three regions.
Moving from CometChat to Stream.
A migration runs in three steps, with both systems live until you switch.
Map groups to channels
CometChat groups map to Stream channels.
Sync with webhooks
Webhook sync keeps both systems in step.
Cut over
Users see no downtime.
"When we started the migration, we started routing the data to Stream from our previous chat provider. Stream's migration process made it really easy for us to do that."
Frequently asked questions.
Try Stream free.
The Build plan includes 1,000 MAU of chat. No credit card required.
Stream.io, Inc. references third-party trademarks only to identify vendors for factual comparison, consistent with nominative fair use. All trademarks remain the property of their owners. Pricing and features checked October 2026 from each vendor's public pages. Spot something out of date? Email compare@getstream.io.