Agora vs Twilio

Discover how Agora compares to Twilio, and understand which is right for your use case, based on dimensions such as scalability, pricing, security, and their chat features.

What is Agora?

Agora offers realtime communication services through APIs, enabling developers to integrate voice, video, and live-streaming features into mobile, desktop, and web applications.

When to use Agora

Pros and cons of Agora

What is Twilio?

Twilio is a cloud platform that enables developers to build real-time communications features for their applications. It provides APIs for voice, SMS, video, WhatsApp, and other messaging services.

When to use Twilio

Pros and cons of Twilio

Compare Agora and Twilio

Let’s compare Agora and Twilio, looking at key elements of their offering such as their scalability, pricing, security and chat feature set.

Disclaimer: This comparison was created based on documentation and resources freely available online about Agora and Twilio. The content was last updated on 16 May 2025 for Agora and on 16 May 2025 for Twilio. Be sure to double-check everything before you make any decisions. If you do find anything incorrect or out of date, then please let us know.

Alternatives to Agora and Twilio

While both Agora and Twilio are worth considering as options for realtime experiences, they aren’t without their limitations. We suggest evaluating them against the following alternatives to make sure you find the right solution for your needs.

Alternatives to Agora

Sendbird offers APIs and SDKs for live chat, realtime messaging, push notifications, and calls with WebSocket connections, UI kits, and backend integrations.

PubNub is a developer API platform that powers the realtime infrastructure in apps to build engaging Virtual Spaces where online communities can connect.

Twilio is a platform that provides developers with a suite of communication tools for building messaging infrastructure in their applications.

See more alternatives to Agora

Alternatives to Twilio

Vonage provides SMS, voice, and video APIs for customizable communication solutions.

Bird (formerly MessageBird) provides SMS, voice, chat, and video APIs for omnichannel communication.

Agora provides APIs for realtime voice, video and live streaming.

See more alternatives to Twilio

Discover how Agora and Twilio stack up against Ably

Ably is the definitive realtime experience platform of the internet. See how we compare to Agora and Twilio on key dimensions such as core features, pricing, integrations, QoS, performance, and security and compliance.

Ably vs Agora Ably vs Twilio

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Ably has built reliable realtime infrastructure so you don’t have to. On our free plan you benefit from:

6M monthly messages
200 concurrent channels
200 concurrent connections

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	Agora	Twilio	Why this matters
Scalability
Concurrent connections	Number of users that can be supported in a single chat.	Agora 10,000 users supported per chat room.	Twilio 1000 users can be supported per group.	Number of users that can be supported in a single chat.
Connections	Number of connections that can be handled across the platform.	Agora Unknown.	Twilio Up to 7,000 in each Twilio subaccount. 100,000 overall, shared among all your subaccounts. Read more	Number of connections that can be handled across the platform.
Channels / rooms	Number of channels or rooms that can be handled across the platform.	Agora Unlimited.	Twilio Unlimited.	Number of channels or rooms that can be handled across the platform.
Messages	Number of messages that can be handled across the platform.	Agora Unknown.	Twilio Unlimited.	Number of messages that can be handled across the platform.
Message throughput	Number of messsages that can be published per second.	Agora Unknown.	Twilio Unknown.	Number of messsages that can be published per second.
Data integrity
Guaranteed message delivery	Ensures messages are never lost during transmission, even in the presence of network disruptions.	Agora No	Twilio No Twilio does not provide exactly-once message delivery. While it ensures reliable delivery, it typically follows at-least-once or best-effort delivery models. That means messages may be delivered more than once in rare cases, such as during network failures or retry attempts.	Ensures messages are never lost during transmission, even in the presence of network disruptions.
Guaranteed message ordering	Maintains the sequence of messages as they were sent. This is particularly important in apps where the chronological order of messages is essential for meaningful communication.	Agora No	Twilio No Twilio sends SMS messages in the order they are queued, but they are delivered individually. That means that if you send multiple SMS messages to the same user quickly, Twilio cannot guarantee that the messages will arrive in the order you sent them. Read more	Maintains the sequence of messages as they were sent. This is particularly important in apps where the chronological order of messages is essential for meaningful communication.
Exactly-once message delivery	Guarantees that each message is processed exactly once, preventing data inconsistencies that can arise from duplicate processing or missing messages.	Agora No	Twilio No Twilio doesn't guarantee exactly-once delivery by default. However, it can implement de-duplication in the receiving service by checking if an event with the same ID has already been received, and discarding duplicates. Read more	Guarantees that each message is processed exactly once, preventing data inconsistencies that can arise from duplicate processing or missing messages.
Performance & availability
Uptime Guarantee	An uptime guarantee instills confidence in the reliability of the service and protects your business from the negative impacts of downtime.	Agora Agora guarantees an SLA uptime of 99.95%.	Twilio Twilio APIs SLA: Up to 99.99% Twilio Flex Critical Scenarios SLA: Up to 99.90% Twilio Segment Data Ingestion API SLA: Up to 99.99% Read more	An uptime guarantee instills confidence in the reliability of the service and protects your business from the negative impacts of downtime.
Global edge network	By bringing servers (Points of Presence, or PoP) geographically closer to the devices of end users, and routing requests to the nearest PoP, global latency is reduced to a minimum.	Agora Yes Agora operates a global network (SD-RTN) of over 200 data centers spread across multiple regions, including the United States, Europe, China, Japan, India, and the Asia Pacific. Read more	Twilio Yes Twilio has a global edge network of network edges called Twilio Edge Locations, which allows you to control the geographic location where your application's network traffic enters and exits Twilio's platform.	By bringing servers (Points of Presence, or PoP) geographically closer to the devices of end users, and routing requests to the nearest PoP, global latency is reduced to a minimum.
Multi-region data replication (message durability)	By replicating data across multiple regions, the risk of data loss or downtime is greatly mitigated since if data is lost or a server fails in one region, the information can be retrieved from another.	Agora Yes	Twilio Yes Twilio provides multi-region data replication to enhance message durability.	By replicating data across multiple regions, the risk of data loss or downtime is greatly mitigated since if data is lost or a server fails in one region, the information can be retrieved from another.
No single point of failure or congestion	Having no single point of failure means a system is resilient and can continue to operate even if one part fails. Avoiding a single point of congestion ensures messages flow efficiently across the system and avoids bottlenecks that could lead to performance issues under load.	Agora Yes Agora global data centers have superior routing capabilities to ensure that the network services are not interrupted due to a single point of failure. Read more	Twilio Yes Twilio's "Super Network" and hybrid cloud infrastructure reduce the risk of a single point of failure and congestion. The design is built with redundancy and scalability to minimize potential disruptions.	Having no single point of failure means a system is resilient and can continue to operate even if one part fails. Avoiding a single point of congestion ensures messages flow efficiently across the system and avoids bottlenecks that could lead to performance issues under load.
Latency	Low latency is crucial for realtime apps as it ensures swift and efficient data transmissions, providing a smoother and more responsive user experience.	Agora The average end-to-end global latency for Agora is 300 milliseconds. Read more	Twilio Unknown.	Low latency is crucial for realtime apps as it ensures swift and efficient data transmissions, providing a smoother and more responsive user experience.
Server-side batching	Reduces the overall message count, lowers costs, and mitigates the risk of hitting rate limits during high-throughput scenarios.	Agora No	Twilio No	Reduces the overall message count, lowers costs, and mitigates the risk of hitting rate limits during high-throughput scenarios.
Connection state recovery	Automatically re-establish failed connections and replay missed messages.	Agora Yes Agora supports reconnection and state recovery mechanisms through the Agora SDK, which automatically tries to re-establish connections if a user drops offline.	Twilio Yes Twilio provides reconnection states and events for Twilio Video applications through the Twilio Video SDK. Read more	Automatically re-establish failed connections and replay missed messages.
Ecosystem support
Supported realtime protocols	Support for multiple protocols provides the flexibility to choose a protocol that best suits your project’s requirements.	Agora WebSockets	Twilio WebSockets	Support for multiple protocols provides the flexibility to choose a protocol that best suits your project’s requirements.
Supported languages	Supporting multiple languages and platforms offers greater flexibility when building cross-platform realtime apps.	Agora Flutter React Native Java C# JavaScript Read more	Twilio PHP Python Ruby NET Java Apex C# Read more	Supporting multiple languages and platforms offers greater flexibility when building cross-platform realtime apps.
Chat room types
Multi-type chat support (group, DM, supergroups)	Enables chat experiences to be tailored to various user needs, from one-on-one to large, scalable group discussions.	Agora Group chat Private chat Direct message (one-to-one) chat Read more	Twilio Twilio is limited to two chat room types: Group chat Private chat Read more	Enables chat experiences to be tailored to various user needs, from one-on-one to large, scalable group discussions.
Chat room management
Presence	Maintaining a view of which users are connected, and their associated metadata, enables their online status to be updated in realtime.	Agora Yes	Twilio Yes Twilio offers presence functionality through its Conversations SDK, which has a built-in Reachability Indicator feature. Read more	Maintaining a view of which users are connected, and their associated metadata, enables their online status to be updated in realtime.
Occupancy	High-level metrics about the clients currently connected to a channel make it simple to show things such as connected user count, or display which channels are the most popular.	Agora No	Twilio No	High-level metrics about the clients currently connected to a channel make it simple to show things such as connected user count, or display which channels are the most popular.
Typing indicators	Show when others are typing in a chat room, enhancing realtime communication flow.	Agora Yes Agora’s Chat SDK allows you to build fully-featured messaging experiences for your users, including typing indicators. Read more	Twilio Yes Twilio Conversation SDK has a Typing Indicator feature that enables typing signals, that allow typing indication to be implemented in a conversation. Read more	Show when others are typing in a chat room, enhancing realtime communication flow.
Room reactions	Customize the chat environment with reactions and other shared room states.	Agora Yes	Twilio No	Customize the chat environment with reactions and other shared room states.
Chat message attributes
Message edits and deletes	Allow users to modify or remove messages.	Agora Yes	Twilio Yes Twilio Conversations allows users and any conversation participant (based on role permissions) to edit and delete messages. Read more	Allow users to modify or remove messages.
Message reactions & emoticons	Boost engagement by enabling users to quickly express emotions or feedback on messages.	Agora Yes Agora allows you to react with up to 20 emoji reactions in a single message during one-to-one chats and group chats. Read more	Twilio Yes Twilio supports emojis in its messaging channels, including SMS, MMS, and WhatsApp. Read more	Boost engagement by enabling users to quickly express emotions or feedback on messages.
Rich text support	Enhance messages with rich text formatting in chat.	Agora No	Twilio Yes Twilio supports rich text formatting via lightweight markup only for WhatsApp chats through its Programmable Messaging. Read more	Enhance messages with rich text formatting in chat.
Media attachments	Support for sharing images, videos, and files in chat.	Agora Yes Agora allows you to send media attachments to a user, a chat group, or a chat room. Read more	Twilio Yes	Support for sharing images, videos, and files in chat.
Chat application and user state
In-app notifications	Notify users of important events from other chat rooms without them leaving the current chat, keeping them engaged and informed.	Agora No	Twilio No	Notify users of important events from other chat rooms without them leaving the current chat, keeping them engaged and informed.
Role-based permissions	Control user roles and permissions to ensure proper access and moderation.	Agora Yes Agora offers role-based access control through the Agora console. Read more	Twilio Yes Twilio Conversations has a Role Resource that represents what a user can do within Conversations. Users are assigned a role at the Service level, and participants are assigned a role at the Conversation level.	Control user roles and permissions to ensure proper access and moderation.
UI kit	Customizable UI elements for a seamless chat integration.	Agora Yes Agora provides open-source chat UI kits on GitHub for iOS, Android, and Web, which you can clone and run. Read more	Twilio Yes	Customizable UI elements for a seamless chat integration.
Storage and history
Synchronous - automated moderation	Detect and manage harmful content automatically, before the message is broadcast to participants.	Agora Yes Moderation is done through Microsoft Azure, and is not enabled by default. To get access, you need either a Pro or Enterprise plan.	Twilio Yes Not natively supported but possible via third-party integrations.	Detect and manage harmful content automatically, before the message is broadcast to participants.