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Ably vs GE Proficy Smart Factory MES comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Ably
Ranking in AWS Marketplace
11th
Average Rating
9.0
Number of Reviews
6
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
GE Proficy Smart Factory MES
Ranking in AWS Marketplace
13th
Average Rating
8.4
Number of Reviews
7
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the AWS Marketplace category, the mindshare of Ably is 0.2%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of GE Proficy Smart Factory MES is 0.2%, up from 0.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
AWS Marketplace Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Ably0.2%
GE Proficy Smart Factory MES0.2%
Other99.6%
AWS Marketplace
 

Featured Reviews

Uday Nagpure  - PeerSpot reviewer
Program Manager at Zensar Technologies
Reduced manual work and built reliable real-time collaboration with serverless messaging
I love Ably for its advanced pub/sub messaging capabilities, which help us with messaging Delta Compression, allowing us to send only changes from previous messages instead of entire payloads every time. For example, if I have to say 'hi', instead of sending the whole payload, it only sends the change in the current payload, reducing bandwidth consumption and enabling high-frequency data streaming. This major change has made our clients really happy as they receive notifications and messages without latency. Additionally, if a client goes offline, Ably stores messages in history for up to 72 hours, allowing clients to query history and catch up on missed events, ensuring complete stream continuity. It also supports multi-protocol, using WebSockets and gracefully falling back to server-sent events and long polling as needed, including support for MQTT and IoT devices along with pub/sub control for easy migration.I appreciate the serverless integration that has the integrated native web hook, instantly triggering serverless functions such as AWS Lambda and Azure Function when specific real-time events occur. It also allows Kafka Connector for seamless ingestion of messages from Kafka topics to stream them out to millions of users in milliseconds.
Yulianto Artawan - PeerSpot reviewer
Field Services Engineer at Tetrapak
Trend analysis has improved troubleshooting and program testing for accurate, reliable outputs
The features I appreciate most in GE Proficy Smart Factory MES are the ability to create trends when I troubleshoot during my daily work. I can also edit the program in GE Proficy Smart Factory MES, and before I download it to the PLC, I can test it first to ensure my program is working correctly. GE Proficy Smart Factory MES has been very useful in my daily work because it is user-friendly. I can also go online and change the IP address easily, which is simpler compared to other solutions. Troubleshooting with GE Proficy Smart Factory MES is easier than other options.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"Ably has improved our organization by enhancing real-time communication capabilities and providing reliable data delivery."
"Ably has positively impacted our organization by providing a good return on investment by avoiding the labor cost of building and maintaining a custom WebSocket server."
"We experience vast improvements across many areas with Ably; when users connect bank accounts, we previously had to poll repeatedly, which is now replaced by Ably's real-time infrastructure that maintains a persistent back-end connection, significantly reducing the need for infrastructure management and API load, resulting in average bank connection display times decreasing from eight to twelve seconds down to one to two seconds, and with persistent back-end connections reducing API calls, we achieve a lower operational load, seeing an impressive reduction of thirty thousand to forty thousand calls monthly."
"My most-liked feature is its highly reliable real-time messaging capacity."
"Ably has a big capacity to stream data all over the world, has higher reliability and a 99.99% uptime, offers robust security guarantees and ease of integration, and saved at least 80% of the cost that would have required more developers and more time for integration testing and development."
"Ably's API integration is intuitive; it definitely improved our efficiency, and we saw faster user interaction and around a 20% reduction in latency during peak times, which improved user experience as well."
"The hardware of GE Proficy Smart Factory MES is very strong, and the software is very easy and useful for me."
"GE Proficy Smart Factory MES has positively impacted my organization in many ways, for example, what we used to accomplish in a day as production has increased quite a bit, and our performance and quality of products have also improved, leading to a noticeable increase in OEE."
"GE Proficy Smart Factory MES has positively impacted my organization, as the production has gone up to 33% in the financial year that they introduced the MES system and we upgraded the systems."
"GE Proficy Smart Factory MES facilitates improved data capture, processing, and reporting across organizational levels, from supervisory to managerial to business levels."
"GE Proficy Smart Factory MES positively impacts my organization by providing a tool for real-time production that utilizes our time in various ways, enabling us to gather all data on one page."
"I have seen a return on investment from using GE Proficy Smart Factory MES, as it enhanced productivity, leading to an increase in the number of parts manufactured, which resulted in good revenue generation for the business."
"With GE Proficy Smart Factory MES, it has affected daily operations by making it a lot easier for them, taking a little bit of load off of their paperwork, but also allowing the customer to really see what is going on and see where they can make some improvements."
 

Cons

"Overall, Ably appears strong for managed real-time operations, but could improve areas such as pricing predictability."
"Ably can be improved in several areas."
"It falls just short of a perfect ten only because full twenty-four-hour phone or live chat escalation is heavily gated behind their highest enterprise pricing tiers."
"I think you could add more password protection inside GE Proficy Smart Factory MES."
"I think GE Proficy Smart Factory MES can be optimized better, specifically regarding the application right and the backup."
"Improvements in GE Proficy Smart Factory MES should focus on enhancing the user interface for thick client displays."
"GE Proficy Smart Factory MES should be a bit easier to customize."
"What I wish was easier or better with GE Proficy Smart Factory MES are some custom extensions in regards to third-party code that integrates into it, making it more of a faceplate and something easier to populate with a single tag number."
"In terms of how GE Proficy Smart Factory MES can be improved, I believe one key area is the connectivity on the shop floor."
"Customer support for GE Proficy Smart Factory MES gives quick results sometimes, but there are delays at times, so I would appreciate quicker responses from their end."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
34%
Outsourcing Company
19%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Consumer Goods Company
7%
Construction Company
30%
Manufacturing Company
21%
Healthcare Company
10%
Comms Service Provider
4%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business7
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise9
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business1
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise8
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Ably?
For the use I have made, I didn't see any limit or margin to implement to go higher.
What is your primary use case for Ably?
My main use case for Ably is integrating the Kafka queue with Ably and sending notifications to IoT devices like a smartwatch. After the topic was reached by the message, Ably can fetch it from thi...
What advice do you have for others considering Ably?
I would recommend trying Ably if you have a wider range of IoT device types to deliver notifications. I gave this review a rating of 9.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for GE Proficy Smart Factory MES?
As for my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing for GE Proficy Smart Factory MES, I did not have to charge for that, so I was the integrator.
What needs improvement with GE Proficy Smart Factory MES?
As for how GE Proficy Smart Factory MES can be improved, I cannot speak to that at the moment with how I have implemented it on the field. What I wish was easier or better with GE Proficy Smart Fac...
What is your primary use case for GE Proficy Smart Factory MES?
My main use case for GE Proficy Smart Factory MES is for recipes and batch executions. When using GE Proficy Smart Factory MES for recipes and batch executions, it depends on the customer process, ...
 

Overview

Find out what your peers are saying about Ably vs. GE Proficy Smart Factory MES and other solutions. Updated: June 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.