Layer vs Sinch: What are the differences?

Layer: Build messaging, voice and video right into your app in minutes. 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; Sinch: Add calling & messaging to your app in minutes. 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.

Layer and Sinch can be primarily classified as "Communications SDK" tools.

Some of the features offered by Layer are:

• Send any message payload (photos, videos, location, json data, etc) up to 2GB
• Build your UI quickly with sample UI components to get started
• User-expected communication features work right out of the box (full message state tracking, typing indicators, read receipts)

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

• iOS, Android and JavaScript SDK with support for REST
• Voice calling and SMS at market leading prices
• Enrich your apps with sticky features such as messaging and calling to increase user retention and engagement

"Open source ui atlas makes messaging easy" is the primary reason why developers consider Layer over the competitors, whereas "Super smooth SDK" was stated as the key factor in picking Sinch.