Liveblocks vs. Tiptap Cloud for collaborative editing
Liveblocks is a realtime collaboration platform that allows you to build multiplayer applications where users and agents can work together. It provides a sync engine that powers shared documents, text editing, presence, and more. Tiptap Cloud is the hosted collaboration service for the Tiptap editor: it syncs Yjs documents and adds comments, version history, document APIs, and AI features, billed per document.
Which should you choose?
Tiptap Cloud and Liveblocks overlap on one thing: keeping a Tiptap document in sync between people. Tiptap Cloud is a back end for that editor, whereas Liveblocks is a back end for everything people edit together, including the editor.
Choose Liveblocks when the editor is one part of a larger shared product, such as a workspace where a brief, a planning board, and review threads all update live, or when you want to swap editors later without changing the back end. Choose Tiptap Cloud when the document is the product, you are committed to Tiptap Editor, and its comments, history, and AI extensions cover what you need to ship. Because Liveblocks has an official Tiptap integration, you can also keep Tiptap Editor and change only the service behind it.
Compare the service around the editor
| Area | Liveblocks | Tiptap Cloud |
|---|---|---|
| Editor support | Tiptap, BlockNote, Lexical, and more. | Tiptap Editor. |
| Document model | Storage, LiveText, or Yjs. | Yjs documents. |
| Conflict resolution | CRDT-based. Concurrent edits to objects, lists, maps, and text merge automatically. | Yjs CRDT, same as the Liveblocks Yjs integrations. |
| Shared application state | Storage for boards, canvases, and any structured data next to the editor. | Not covered. Data outside the document needs its own storage and sync. |
| Comments and history | Comments, Notifications, and version history as separate products. | Document comments and version history. Version comparison on Team and above. |
| Server-side editing | REST API to read and edit Storage and Yjs documents from your server. | Document REST API on Team and above. |
| Ready-made UI | Cursors, avatar stacks, comments, and notifications. | Editor UI components and comments. |
| Authentication | Your server issues access tokens using your existing auth. | Your server signs JWTs with the Tiptap app secret. |
| The main question | Which parts of your app should people edit together? | Is the document the whole collaborative product? |
Can I keep Tiptap Editor and use Liveblocks?
Yes. Liveblocks maintains
@liveblocks/react-tiptap, an
official integration that connects Tiptap
Editor to a Liveblocks room. You keep the editor, its schema, and your
extensions; only the collaboration service behind it changes.
For an existing application, keep three migration steps separate:
| Layer | Migration work |
|---|---|
| Editor schema and extensions | Keep your nodes and marks. Test custom extensions against the integration. |
| Document content | Move each document into the Liveblocks document model you picked and check a sample of real documents. |
| Service-owned data | Map document IDs, access rules, comments, and history one by one. Moving content does not move these. |
Keep the original data until the new integration has been checked against real documents. Then switch providers.
How do comments and version history compare?
Both offer them, scoped differently. Tiptap's document services include comments, snapshots, snapshot comparison, and server-side content injection, and which of these you get depends on the plan.
Liveblocks version history captures Storage and Yjs. Restoring Storage restores that document; it does not also restore a separate Yjs document. For a canvas with embedded text, keeping the text in Storage through LiveText gives the content and layout one document boundary.
For a workspace with a brief, a board, and review threads, give each part of your app an owner: the editor holds the brief, Storage holds the board, Comments holds discussion, and Notifications brings people back. Tiptap Cloud is a good fit when its editor-centered services cover the product. Liveblocks fits when the workflow spans several shared parts of your app.
Editing with people and AI agents
Tiptap's AI tooling can stream edits into a live cloud document through Collaboration. Liveblocks provides server-side editing for Storage and Yjs documents, so an agent running on your server can change content while people are editing it and everyone sees the merged result.
Self-hosting with Hocuspocus
Hocuspocus is Tiptap's open-source Yjs collaboration server. It is the option when you want to run that part of the stack yourself, and it can sync any Yjs document, not only a text editor. Tiptap also offers managed collaboration and enterprise on-premises deployment.
With Hocuspocus, your team runs the collaboration server, its database, backups, and scaling. Count that work when comparing it with a managed service.
How does document billing differ from collaboration billing?
Tiptap bills per document; Liveblocks bills usage. Tiptap's Start plan is $49 per month and Team is $149 per month, both billed annually ($59 and $179 on monthly billing). Start includes 500 cloud documents per environment and Team includes 5,000; more documents are a paid add-on. Liveblocks uses a plan with credits and usage-based pricing. Compare the services you need, not only the base subscriptions. Prices checked September 28, 2026.
As an example, take an application with 200 editable briefs and 20,000 read-only logs. Tiptap counts only the documents stored in its cloud; documents kept in your own database do not count, and editing an existing cloud document does not add one. Keeping the logs outside Tiptap Cloud therefore changes the estimate a lot.
For Liveblocks, count collaboration time, updates, and stored data rather than treating every stored document as an active editing session. Add comments and notifications if the workflow uses them. Your plan's credits apply once across all Liveblocks usage.
Tiptap can be self-hosted with Hocuspocus, and on-premises deployment is an Enterprise option. Liveblocks offers self-hosting as a paid add-on on the Enterprise plan. Either way, your own servers, database, backups, and operations are part of the budget.
Get started
Try the editor example for a working application with Sync, Comments, and Notifications, then check your editor against the supported integrations.
Start building with Liveblocks for free. Follow the setup guide for your project.