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OpenTok

60
158
+ 1
8
Twilio

11.1K
8.5K
+ 1
521
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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
Decisions about OpenTok and Twilio
Julien DeFrance
Principal Software Engineer at Tophatter · | 3 upvotes · 536K views

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 SendGrid continues to show it.

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Pros of OpenTok
Pros of Twilio
  • 6
    Video Archiving to s3
  • 2
    Easy setup
  • 148
    Powerful, simple, and well documented api
  • 88
    RESTful API
  • 66
    Clear pricing
  • 61
    Great sms services
  • 58
    Low cost of entry
  • 29
    Global SMS Gateway
  • 14
    Good value
  • 12
    Cloud IVR
  • 11
    Simple
  • 11
    Extremely simple to integrate with rails
  • 6
    Great for startups
  • 5
    SMS
  • 3
    Great developer program
  • 3
    Hassle free
  • 2
    Text me the app pages
  • 1
    New Features constantly rolling out
  • 1
    Many deployment options, from build from scratch to buy
  • 1
    Easy integration
  • 1
    Two factor authentication

Sign up to add or upvote prosMake informed product decisions

Cons of OpenTok
Cons of Twilio
    Be the first to leave a con
    • 4
      Predictable pricing
    • 2
      Expensive

    Sign up to add or upvote consMake informed product decisions

    What is OpenTok?

    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.

    What is Twilio?

    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.

    Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!

    What companies use OpenTok?
    What companies use Twilio?
    See which teams inside your own company are using OpenTok or Twilio.
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    What tools integrate with OpenTok?
    What tools integrate with Twilio?
      No integrations found

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      Blog Posts

      Jul 2 2019 at 9:34PM

      Segment

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      What are some alternatives to OpenTok and Twilio?
      WebRTC
      It is a free, open project that enables web browsers with Real-Time Communications (RTC) capabilities via simple JavaScript APIs. The WebRTC components have been optimized to best serve this purpose.
      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.
      Zoom
      Zoom unifies cloud video conferencing, simple online meetings, and cross platform group chat into one easy-to-use platform. Our solution offers the best video, audio, and screen-sharing experience across Zoom Rooms, Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, and H.323/SIP room systems.
      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.
      Jitsi
      Jitsi (acquired by 8x8) is a set of open-source projects that allows you to easily build and deploy secure videoconferencing solutions. At the heart of Jitsi are Jitsi Videobridge and Jitsi Meet, which let you have conferences on the internet, while other projects in the community enable other features such as audio, dial-in, recording, and simulcasting.
      See all alternatives