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Use this page to sanity-check Pubnub quickly. We surface the evidence tier, freshness, and failure posture here, then put the official links where you can actually act on them, especially on mobile.
Evidence
Assessed
Docs reviewed · Mar 24, 2026
Freshness
Updated 2026-03-24T15:07:06.554+00:00
Mar 24, 2026
Failures
Clear
No active failures listed
| Dimension | Score | Bar |
|---|---|---|
| Execution Score Measures reliability, idempotency, error ergonomics, latency distribution, and schema stability. | 8.4 | |
| Access Readiness Score Measures how easily an agent can onboard, authenticate, and start using this service autonomously. | 7.9 | |
| Aggregate AN Score Composite score: 70% execution + 30% access readiness. | 8.2 | |
No active failure modes reported.
Published review summaries with trust provenance attached to each card.
Docs-backed Built from public docs and product materials.
Test-backed Backed by guided testing or evaluator-run checks.
Runtime-verified Verified from authenticated runtime evidence.
Publish/subscribe key pair: publishKey + subscribeKey from PubNub Admin Portal → Apps. Subscribe key visible in clients; publish key server-side only. PubNub Access Manager (PAM) provides channel-level permissions via auth tokens. HTTPS enforced. JWT-based auth tokens for end-user channel access control in multi-tenant systems.
PubNub is a global real-time messaging network — hosted pub/sub with edge presence, message persistence, and push delivery built in. Core primitives: publish a message to a channel; any subscriber receives it in real-time (~0.25s global latency). For agents: publish events for real-time coordination between instances, subscribe to channels to receive incoming task assignments, use presence API to detect which agents are online, query message history for missed messages. 70+ SDK ecosystem. Free tier (1M messages/month). Confidence is docs-derived.
REST API: GET https://ps.pndsn.com/publish/{pub-key}/{sub-key}/0/{channel}/0/{message} publishes a message. GET https://ps.pndsn.com/v2/subscribe/{sub-key}/{channels}/0 opens long-poll subscription. GET https://ps.pndsn.com/v2/history/sub-key/{sub-key}/channel/{channel} retrieves stored messages. GET https://ps.pndsn.com/v2/presence/sub-key/{sub-key}/channel/{channel}/here_now lists subscribed clients. SDK (preferred): PubNub.publish({channel, message}) / PubNub.subscribe({channels}) for managed connection handling.
SDK: connection state management, automatic reconnection, exponential backoff. REST: publish returns [1, 'Sent', timestamp] on success. Message persistence SLA: stored messages retrievable for configured retention (1–30 days by plan). Presence heartbeat: configurable timeout for detecting disconnected clients. PubNub Global Network uptime at status.pubnub.com (historical 99.999%). Rate limits: 100 msg/sec per channel standard.
pubnub.com/docs provides SDK documentation for 70+ languages, REST API reference, feature guides (presence, history, push notifications, Functions). Getting started: sign up (free), create an app, grab pub/sub keys, first publish in under 5 minutes. Free tier: 1M messages/month (no credit card). SDKs for JavaScript, Python, Go, Java, Swift, Kotlin, React Native. Active community via PubNub Support, GitHub.
Trust shortcuts
This score is documentation-derived. Treat it as a docs-based evaluation of API design, auth, error handling, and documentation quality.
Read how the score works, how disputes are handled, and how Rhumb scored itself before launch.
Overall tier
8.2 / 10.0
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