Overview

Twilio

Stacks11.5K

Followers8.8K

Votes521

PubNub

Stacks239

Followers458

Votes238

PubNub vs Twilio: What are the differences?

Key Differences between PubNub and Twilio

PubNub and Twilio are two popular communication platforms that offer different features and functionalities. Here are the key differences between PubNub and Twilio:

Messaging and Broadcasting: PubNub specializes in real-time messaging and broadcasting capabilities. It provides a reliable and scalable infrastructure for sending messages, enabling developers to build chat applications, IoT devices, and collaborative tools. On the other hand, Twilio can also handle messaging, but it primarily focuses on providing APIs for voice and video communications, such as making phone calls and sending SMS.
Voice and Video Communications: Twilio excels in voice and video communications, offering comprehensive APIs and SDKs for integrating voice and video calling functionality into applications. It supports features like call routing, conference calling, and two-factor authentication via phone calls. While PubNub does have voice and video capabilities, it is not its core strength and may not offer the same level of customization and flexibility as Twilio in this area.
Integration with PSTN: Twilio has extensive support for integrating with the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN), allowing developers to make and receive phone calls to and from regular telephone numbers. It provides virtual phone numbers, call routing, and more advanced telephony features. PubNub, on the other hand, does not have direct integration with PSTN and primarily focuses on real-time messaging and IoT use cases.
Scalability and Global Network: PubNub is specifically designed to handle large-scale real-time messaging and IoT applications with a global presence. It boasts a distributed network infrastructure that ensures low-latency communication across the globe. Twilio, meanwhile, offers a global network as well, but its primary focus is on voice and text communication.
Pricing Model: PubNub and Twilio have different pricing models. PubNub's pricing is based on the number of messages sent and received, the number of connected devices or users, and the bandwidth used. Twilio, on the other hand, charges based on the number of API requests made, the number of minutes or messages used, and the additional features and services utilized. It's important to consider the specific needs and usage patterns to determine the most cost-effective option.
Development Complexity: The development complexity of PubNub and Twilio can also differ. PubNub provides a simplified and user-friendly API that allows developers to quickly integrate real-time messaging into their applications. It offers various SDKs and pre-built components to facilitate development. Twilio, on the other hand, offers a comprehensive set of APIs for voice, video, and SMS, but may require more development effort and expertise to utilize its features effectively.

In summary, PubNub is a specialized platform for real-time messaging and broadcasting, while Twilio offers comprehensive capabilities for voice, video, and SMS communication, with extensive support for integrating with PSTN. PubNub focuses on scalability and global network infrastructure, while Twilio excels in voice and video communications. The pricing models and development complexity may vary between the two platforms.

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Advice on Twilio, PubNub

Finch

Ops at SLS

Jul 23, 2020

Needs adviceon

Salesforce Sales Cloud

Salesforce

Hey! We need an omnichannel inbox that's housed within Salesforce Sales Cloud that makes it super easy for our reps to respond to inbound communication (needs: clean inbox, provides historical context, etc.). We're a high-volume call center, and we get a ton of incoming SMS and email every day. We'd love a solution that lets us view all of that in one place — ideally Salesforce, as that's where our reps work, and we want to avoid needing them to switch between windows. Thanks!

189k views189k

Comments

Dainis

Marketing project manager at Colortime

Jan 31, 2020

Needs advice

Hello! We need to integrate an SMS gateway into our app for user phone verification. As we are just starting, we are searching for the most affordable/best price/performance option for SMS gateway to verify client phone numbers with the code, maybe you can suggest something between those two or maybe something else. We are planning to do business in Europe

135k views135k

Comments

Detailed Comparison

Twilio	PubNub
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.	PubNub makes it easy for you to add real-time capabilities to your apps, without worrying about the infrastructure. Build apps that allow your users to engage in real-time across mobile, browser, desktop and server.
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	PubNub SDKs support over 50 of the most popular environments, including: iOS, Android, JavaScript, .NET, Java, Ruby, Python, PHP and many more.;Data Push - Establish and maintain persistent socket connections to any device (mobile, browser, desktop and server) and push data to global audiences in less than ¼ of a second;Presence - Automatically detect when users enter or leave your app and whether machines are online;Storage and Playback- Store your real-time data streams for future access, “playback” or re-publish;Mobile - Easily manage the complexity of real-time apps on mobile devices;Analytics - Simulate an audience of millions. See a live view of audience size, engagement and geography;Security - Protect your real-time data with easy to use enterprise-grade security
Statistics
Stacks 11.5K	Stacks 239
Followers 8.8K	Followers 458
Votes 521	Votes 238
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 36 Massively scalable & easy to use 25 Easy setup 20 Reliable 19 Great support 14 Flexible to integrate to custom applications Cons 1 Costly
Integrations
Google App Engine Bugsnag Zendesk Twilio SendGrid Parse	No integrations available

What are some alternatives to Twilio, PubNub?

Firebase

Firebase is a cloud service designed to power real-time, collaborative applications. Simply add the Firebase library to your application to gain access to a shared data structure; any changes you make to that data are automatically synchronized with the Firebase cloud and with other clients within milliseconds.

Socket.IO

It enables real-time bidirectional event-based communication. It works on every platform, browser or device, focusing equally on reliability and speed.

Pusher

Pusher is the category leader in delightful APIs for app developers building communication and collaboration features.

SignalR

SignalR allows bi-directional communication between server and client. Servers can now push content to connected clients instantly as it becomes available. SignalR supports Web Sockets, and falls back to other compatible techniques for older browsers. SignalR includes APIs for connection management (for instance, connect and disconnect events), grouping connections, and authorization.

Ably

Ably offers WebSockets, stream resume, history, presence, and managed third-party integrations to make it simple to build, extend, and deliver digital realtime experiences at scale.

Syncano

Syncano is a backend platform to build powerful real-time apps more efficiently. Integrate with any API, minimize boilerplate code and control your data - all from one place.

NATS

Unlike traditional enterprise messaging systems, NATS has an always-on dial tone that does whatever it takes to remain available. This forms a great base for building modern, reliable, and scalable cloud and distributed systems.

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.

SocketCluster

SocketCluster is a fast, highly scalable HTTP + realtime server engine which lets you build multi-process realtime servers that make use of all CPU cores on a machine/instance. It removes the limitations of having to run your Node.js server as a single thread and makes your backend resilient by automatically recovering from worker crashes and aggregating errors into a central log.

deepstream.io

Scalable Server for Realtime Web Apps with JSON structures that can be read, manipulated and listened to, messages that can be sent to one or more subscribers, and request response workflows, between two clients or servers.