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  1. Stackups
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  4. Voice And SMS
  5. OpenTok vs Twilio

OpenTok vs Twilio

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Twilio
Twilio
Stacks11.5K
Followers8.8K
Votes521
OpenTok
OpenTok
Stacks60
Followers159
Votes8

OpenTok vs Twilio: What are the differences?

What is OpenTok? Enhance your products with live, face-to-face communication. OpenTok adds the clarity and emotion of face-to-face communication to your brand whether you're developing for the web, iOS, or Android. We make the integration of high-quality live video a breeze so that you can focus on building a great product.

What is Twilio? Bring voice and messaging to your web and mobile applications. Twilio offers developers a powerful API for phone services to make and receive phone calls, and send and receive text messages. Their product allows programmers to more easily integrate various communication methods into their software and programs.

OpenTok can be classified as a tool in the "Communications SDK" category, while Twilio is grouped under "Voice and SMS".

Some of the features offered by OpenTok are:

  • Layout control- Create layouts that complement your content and empower your application's experience.
  • Peer-to-peer calls- Take advantage of peer-to-peer calling for better quality and lower- latency 1:1 scenarios.
  • Archiving- Download or save calls for future playback with this extension to the OpenTok platform.

On the other hand, Twilio provides the following key features:

  • Phone- Phone Numbers API
  • Phone- Convert Text to Speech and Play Audio
  • Phone- Record Calls and Store Them

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Advice on Twilio, OpenTok

Julien
Julien

Principal Software Engineer at SmartZip

Feb 24, 2019

Needs adviceonNexmoNexmoTwilioTwilioTwilio FunctionsTwilio Functions

Nexmo vs Twilio ?

Back in the early days at SmartZip Analytics, that evaluation had - for whatever reason - been made by Product Management. Some developers might have been consulted, but we hadn't made the final call and some key engineering aspects of it were omitted.

When revamping the platform, I made sure to flip the decision process how it should be. Business provided an input but Engineering lead the way and has the final say on all implementation matters. My engineers and I decided on re-evaluating the criteria and vendor selection. Not only did we need #SMS support, but were we not thinking about #VoiceAndSms support as the use cases evolved.

Also, on an engineering standpoint, #SDK mattered. Nexmo didn't have any. Twilio did. No-one would ever want to re-build from scratch integration layers vendors should naturally come up with and provide their customers with.

#Twilio won on all fronts. Including costs and implementation timelines. No-one even noticed the vendor switch.

Many years later, Twilio demonstrated its position as a leader by holding conferences in the Bay Area, announcing features like Twilio Functions. Even acquired Authy which we also used for 2FA. Twilio's growth has been amazing. Its recent acquisition of Twilio SendGrid continues to show it.

586k views586k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

Twilio
Twilio
OpenTok
OpenTok

Twilio offers developers a powerful API for phone services to make and receive phone calls, and send and receive text messages. Their product allows programmers to more easily integrate various communication methods into their software and programs.

It adds the clarity and emotion of face-to-face communication to your brand whether you're developing for the web, iOS, or Android. We make the integration of high-quality live video a breeze so that you can focus on building a great product.

Phone- Phone Numbers API;Phone- Convert Text to Speech and Play Audio;Phone- Record Calls and Store Them;Phone- Create Conferences;Phone- API Queueing;Phone- Call Queues;Phone- Convert Speech to Text;Phone- Usage API;Phone- Status Callbacks and Logs;Phone- Global Reach;SMS- Supports Unicode;SMS- Message Queueing;SMS- Realtime API;SMS- Global Reach;SMS- Status Callbacks and Logs;SMS- Usage metering & API triggers;SMS- Voice Enabled Numbers;SMS- Short Codes;Two-factor authentication;Call tracking;Voice broadcasting;Cloud IVR;Mobile app distribution
Layout control- Create layouts that complement your content and empower your application's experience;Peer-to-peer calls- Take advantage of peer-to-peer calling for better quality and lower- latency 1:1 scenarios;Archiving- Download or save calls for future playback with this extension to the OpenTok platform;Multi-party calls- Bring small groups together for business or social gatherings using face-to-face video;Moderation- Tame the wild-west nature of social video with OpenTok's moderation functionality;Broadcast- Create a virtual stage and invite an audience of thousands to join you.
Statistics
Stacks
11.5K
Stacks
60
Followers
8.8K
Followers
159
Votes
521
Votes
8
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 148
    Powerful, simple, and well documented api
  • 88
    RESTful API
  • 66
    Clear pricing
  • 61
    Great sms services
  • 58
    Low cost of entry
Cons
  • 4
    Predictable pricing
  • 2
    Expensive
Pros
  • 6
    Video Archiving to s3
  • 2
    Easy setup
Integrations
Google App Engine
Google App Engine
Bugsnag
Bugsnag
Zendesk
Zendesk
Twilio SendGrid
Twilio SendGrid
Parse
Parse
No integrations available

What are some alternatives to Twilio, OpenTok?

Chat by Stream

Chat by Stream

Chat API and SDK. With a beautiful UI Kit, easy to use React Components and powerful API. Add Chat to any application in a matter of hours. The tech uses Go, RocksDB and Raft. By the creators of Stream, the API that powers activity feeds for more than 300 million users.

SendBird

SendBird

SendBird is a Messaging SDK, Chat API, and fully managed chat infrastructure for your mobile apps and websites. Embeddable chat for iOS, Android, JavaScript, Unity, .NET.

Nexmo

Nexmo

Nexmo connects your apps directly to carriers around the world. Integrate SMS and Voice messages using one simple API. Use Nexmo Verity to register users, verify transactions, and implement two factor authentication.

Sinch

Sinch

Sinch makes it easy for developers to add voice, messaging and SMS to their apps with just a few lines of code. Enrich your apps with communications that your users will love.

Plivo

Plivo

Plivo provides basic building block APIs in the form of Plivo XML and HTTP API, to create telephony apps, so developers can completely do away with learning the nitty-gritty of the telephony plumbing.

ChannelizeIO

ChannelizeIO

Add In-App User-to-User Communication into Mobile Apps & Websites, with rich & engaging Text Chat, Video, and Audio Calling experiences, to Increase User Engagement and Enable new Revenue Streams.

Agora

Agora

Agora.io provides building blocks for you to add real-time voice and video communications through a simple and powerful SDK. You can integrate the Agora SDK to enable real-time communications in your own application quickly.

QuickBlox

QuickBlox

Add powerful communication features to your mobile app and data services for your backend<br>

Layer

Layer

Layer's asynchronous messaging fabric is capable of transporting payloads of any type. Get your users talking with chat, voice or video messaging. Pull them back in with push. Connect friends, colleagues or perfect strangers seamlessly.

ClickSend SMS

ClickSend SMS

Send and receive SMS globally with the SMS gateway. Trust your business messaging with reliable, direct routes, and lightning fast message delivery.

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