Layer announced the cessation of all chat operations by October 30, 2019, prompting customers to migrate to alternative providers like PubNub, which offers a highly customizable and scalable real-time network for chat applications. Unlike Layer's end-to-end chat solution which included backend infrastructure and rigid UI/UX elements, PubNub allows for extensive app flexibility and innovation over time. While both services offer basic chat features such as messaging and user management, PubNub stands out with advanced extensibility, serverless functions, and a superior infrastructure scale with a 99.999% SLA compared to Layer's 99.9%. PubNub supports thousands of participants in a single channel, offers robust security through its Access Manager, and allows large message sizes up to 32 KB, providing a more adaptable and feature-rich platform for developers transitioning from Layer.