Meteor still works and still ships. The Meteor changelog lists 3.5.4 on October 27, 2026, which bundles Node.js 24.22.1, and 3.4 added an Rspack bundler in January 2026. The big break came with 3.0 on July 15, 2024, when Meteor removed Fibers and moved to native async/await, per an OpenReplay review from September 2026.
People still leave for familiar reasons. That same review names a small hiring pool, an Atmosphere package registry that is a fraction of npm, a data layer built around MongoDB, and a poor fit for SEO-driven public sites. Teams that had to rewrite every Fiber-based method for 3.0 also weigh how much more a second rewrite onto a new stack would cost.
The list starts with backends that give you Meteor-style live data, then moves to app frameworks you would pair with a database of your choice.
Prices below are as of November 6, 2026. Our method is on How we review tools.
Quick comparison
| Tool | Best for | Price | Platforms |
|---|---|---|---|
| Convex | Reactive queries that update the UI on their own | Free tier; Professional $25 per developer per month | Hosted or self-hosted; React, Next.js, Svelte and other clients |
| Supabase | Postgres with realtime, auth and storage | Free tier; Pro from $25 per month | Hosted or self-hosted |
| Firebase | Mobile-first apps with offline sync | Spark free; Blaze pay as you go | Google Cloud; web, iOS, Android |
| Next.js | React apps with server rendering and SEO | Free (MIT) | Node.js, Docker, static export |
| SvelteKit | Small bundles and simple reactivity | Free (MIT) | Node.js 22.17+, serverless adapters |
| React Router | Existing Remix apps and form-heavy React sites | Free (MIT) | Node.js 22.22+ |
| Feathers | A self-hosted Node API with real-time events | Free (MIT) | Node.js, any database |
| RedwoodSDK | Server-driven React apps on Cloudflare | Free (MIT) | Cloudflare Workers |
Convex
Meteor's pub/sub and Minimongo made data feel live, and Convex is the modern take on that idea. Queries are TypeScript functions on the server, and every client subscribed to a query gets new results when the underlying data changes. You do not write a publication or tail an oplog.
The npm client is at 1.49.0, released on October 30, 2026, under Apache 2.0, and needs Node.js 22. The backend is source-available under FSL-1.1-Apache-2.0, which converts to Apache 2.0 later, so it is not open source on day one. Convex runs as a hosted service, and the site also offers a self-hosted and local development path. Auth works through providers such as Clerk and Auth0.
Best for: Meteor developers who want reactive data without running MongoDB themselves.
Pricing:
- Free and Starter: $0 per month, 1-6 developers, 1M function calls, 0.5 GB database storage and 1 GB egress included, then pay as you go ($2.20 per extra 1M calls)
- Professional: $25 per developer per month
- Business and Enterprise: $2,500 monthly minimum
Watch out for:
- The pricing page jumps from $25 per developer on Professional to a $2,500 monthly minimum on Business, with nothing in between.
Official site: Convex.
Supabase
If MongoDB was the part of Meteor you never liked, Supabase swaps it for Postgres. Realtime pushes database changes and messages to connected clients, and auth and file storage come in the same project. The JavaScript client is at 2.119.0 on npm, MIT licensed.
A free project gets a 500 MB database, 50,000 monthly active users, 200 concurrent realtime connections and 2 million realtime messages a month. Relational data, joins and SQL migrations all work the way a Postgres user expects.
Best for: Apps with relational data that still need live updates and built-in auth.
Pricing:
- Free: $0 per month, 2 active projects, 500 MB database per project
- Pro: from $25 per month, includes $10 compute credits, 8 GB disk, 100,000 MAU, 500 realtime connections
- Extra Pro projects from $10 per month each
Watch out for:
- Free projects are paused after 1 week of inactivity, which is fine for demos and bad for a quiet side project.
Official site: Supabase.
Firebase
Google's Firebase was Meteor's main rival a decade ago and is still the default for live data on mobile. Firestore and the older Realtime Database push changes to clients and cache data for offline use. The web SDK is at 13.2.0 on npm, Apache 2.0, though the backend services themselves are closed.
The free Spark plan includes 1 GiB of Firestore storage with 50K reads and 20K writes a day, 50K monthly active users for Authentication, and 10 GB of Hosting storage. Paid usage runs through the Blaze plan on Google Cloud billing.
Best for: Mobile and web apps that need offline sync and Google sign-in with little backend code.
Pricing:
- Spark: free, Firestore 50K reads and 20K writes per day, 1 GiB stored
- Blaze: pay as you go; Realtime Database storage $5 per GB after 1 GB free, downloads $1 per GB after about 10 GB per month
- Hosting transfer $0.15 per GB after 360 MB per day
Watch out for:
- Spark limits Realtime Database to 100 simultaneous connections, and Cloud Functions only appear under Blaze on the pricing page, so most real apps need a billing account.
Official site: Firebase.
Next.js
Meteor apps that grew a public marketing side often hit the SEO problem. Next.js renders React on the server, streams pages, and caches them with Incremental Static Regeneration. Version 16.4.5 shipped on November 3, 2026, MIT licensed.
Next.js has no live data layer of its own. Most Meteor refugees pair it with Convex or Supabase for subscriptions, and keep Server Functions for writes. It deploys as a Node.js server, a Docker image or a static export.
Best for: React teams that need fast, indexable pages next to the logged-in app.
Pricing:
- Framework: free, MIT licence
- Hosting is separate; Vercel is the maker's own platform, priced on its site
Watch out for:
- Running more than one instance takes extra setup. The self-hosting guide says each instance keeps its own cache unless you add a shared cache handler such as Redis, and all instances need the same Server Functions encryption key.
Official site: Next.js.
SvelteKit
Blaze developers often like Svelte more than React. Templates read like HTML, reactive state is a plain variable, and the compiler ships small bundles. SvelteKit adds routing, server load functions, form actions and adapters for Node.js and serverless hosts.
SvelteKit 3.1.1 came out on October 29, 2026 and Svelte itself is at 5.57.3, both MIT. Like Next.js, it has no realtime database, so live updates mean a WebSocket server, Supabase, or Convex's Svelte client.
Best for: Small teams that want a light, readable component model and server rendering.
Pricing:
- Free, MIT licence
- No paid edition
Watch out for:
- SvelteKit 3 has a high floor: npm lists Node.js 22.17, Vite 8, Svelte 5.57 and TypeScript 6 as requirements. Older Svelte 4 tutorials and components may not apply.
Official site: SvelteKit.
React Router
Remix no longer ships as a React framework under that name. Its features merged into React Router v7 in 2024, and the Remix team now recommends React Router for React apps. Remix 3, announced in 2025 and released as 3.0.0 on October 1, 2026, is a separate framework built on web APIs.
In framework mode, React Router gives you nested routes, loaders and actions that run on the server, and progressive forms that work before JavaScript loads. npm lists 8.5.1 from October 27, 2026, which needs React 19.2.7 and Node.js 22.22 or newer.
Best for: Form-heavy React apps and anyone with an existing Remix 2 codebase.
Pricing:
- Free, MIT licence
- No paid edition
Watch out for:
- The naming confuses search results. Guides for Remix 2, Remix 3 and React Router 7 or 8 use different APIs, so check the version on every tutorial.
Official site: React Router.
Feathers
For teams that want to keep their own Node server, Feathers is the nearest thing to Meteor methods plus publications. You define services, and every create, update or remove is sent to subscribed clients over WebSockets as an event. It works with React, Vue, Angular and React Native front ends.
The current release is 5.0.50 from September 11, 2026, MIT licensed. Official adapters cover MongoDB and SQL through Knex, so you can keep your Meteor MongoDB data. Our LoopBack alternatives page compares it with other Node API frameworks.
Best for: Self-hosted real-time APIs where you choose the database and the front end.
Pricing:
- Free, MIT licence
- No paid edition
Watch out for:
- Version 6 has sat at 6.0.0-pre.0 since January 31, 2026, so the next major is slow to arrive.
Official site: Feathers.
RedwoodSDK
RedwoodJS, the GraphQL full-stack framework, last shipped 8.9.0 on npm in October 2025. The same team's active project is RedwoodSDK, which describes itself as a way to build server-driven web apps on Cloudflare with SSR, React Server Components and realtime.
Version 1.7.5 is from October 22, 2026, MIT licensed. It starts as a Vite plugin, and the README lists realtime server functions among its features, which suits the chat and collaborative screens Meteor was good at.
Best for: React developers who are happy to deploy on Cloudflare Workers.
Pricing:
- Framework: free, MIT licence
- Runs on your Cloudflare account, billed by Cloudflare
Watch out for:
- It is tied to Cloudflare. The package lists wrangler and the Cloudflare Vite plugin as peer dependencies, so moving hosts later means a rewrite.
Official site: RedwoodSDK.
How to choose
| If you need | Pick |
|---|---|
| Live queries that update the UI with no extra code | Convex |
| SQL data with realtime and auth in one service | Supabase |
| Offline sync for a mobile app | Firebase |
| Public pages that rank in search | Next.js |
| A lighter component model than React | SvelteKit |
| A path forward for a Remix 2 app | React Router |
| Your own Node server with real-time events and MongoDB | Feathers |
| Realtime React on Cloudflare's edge | RedwoodSDK |
When to stay with Meteor
Stay on Meteor if you already moved to 3.x and your app is a logged-in tool rather than a public site. The hardest migration, Fibers to async/await, is behind you, and 3.5 releases arrive every month or two. If you run MongoDB 6 or later as a replica set, Meteor can use Change Streams instead of oplog tailing for reactivity.
Frequently asked questions
Is Meteor.js dead?
No. Meteor 3.5.4 was released on October 27, 2026. It is the fifth 3.5 release; 3.5.0 came out June 30, 2026. Its community is smaller than in 2015, though, and fewer new projects start on it.
What replaced Meteor's real-time data?
Hosted reactive backends. Convex is the closest in spirit, since queries re-run and push new results to clients. Supabase Realtime and Firebase listeners do a similar job, with Postgres and Google's document store underneath.
Is Meteor 3 a big rewrite from Meteor 2?
For many apps, yes. Removing Fibers meant converting synchronous server code to async/await, including collection calls such as findOne. Meteor also changed the bundled Node.js from version 20 in 3.0 to 24 in the 3.5 line.
Can I use Next.js with Meteor?
Not as one app, since each has its own build system and server. You can keep Meteor as a backend for methods and publications, build a separate Next.js front end that connects over DDP, Meteor's WebSocket protocol, and then move the backend piece by piece.
