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

What is Quickblox?
QuickBlox provides APIs and SDKs for building realtime chat, voice, and video communication apps. It includes chat UI kits, AI-powered assistants, push notifications, and custom video conferencing options.

What is Sendbird?
Sendbird provides APIs and SDKs for mobile and web to integrate live chats and realtime messaging with message history, typing indicators, and push notifications features. It uses WebSocket connections and offers customizability using UI kits and backend integrations. It also supports video and audio integrations for calls.
Compare Quickblox and Sendbird
Let’s compare Quickblox and Sendbird, looking at key elements of their offering such as their scalability, pricing, security and chat feature set.
Scalability | |||
Concurrent connections | Number of users that can be supported in a single chat. | Quickblox Limit on pre-enterprise plans is 25,000. There is no specified limit on Enterprise. Read more | Sendbird Up to 20K users in super groups are supported in a single chat. Overages apply if you exceed plan quota - $5 per additional concurrent connection. |
Connections | Number of connections that can be handled across the platform. | Quickblox Unknown. | Sendbird Unlimited - depends on plan. Overages apply if you exceed plan quota - $0.05 per additional user. |
Channels / rooms | Number of channels or rooms that can be handled across the platform. | Quickblox Unlimited. | Sendbird Unlimited. |
Messages | Number of messages that can be handled across the platform. | Quickblox Unknown. | Sendbird Unlimited. |
Message throughput | Number of messsages that can be published per second. | Quickblox | Sendbird 5 messages per second. |
Data integrity | |||
Guaranteed message delivery | Ensures messages are never lost during transmission, even in the presence of network disruptions. | Quickblox No | Sendbird No |
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. | Quickblox No | Sendbird No |
Exactly-once message delivery | Guarantees that each message is processed exactly once, preventing data inconsistencies that can arise from duplicate processing or missing messages. | Quickblox No | Sendbird No |
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. | Quickblox Unknown. | Sendbird A 99.9% SLA uptime guarantee is provided on paid plans. |
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. | Quickblox No | Sendbird Yes Sendbird has servers deployed across 11 worldwide regions. |
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. | Quickblox No | Sendbird No |
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. | Quickblox No | Sendbird No |
Latency | Low latency is crucial for realtime apps as it ensures swift and efficient data transmissions, providing a smoother and more responsive user experience. | Quickblox Unknown. | Sendbird Unknown. |
Server-side batching | Reduces the overall message count, lowers costs, and mitigates the risk of hitting rate limits during high-throughput scenarios. | Quickblox No | Sendbird No |
Connection state recovery | Automatically re-establish failed connections and replay missed messages. | Quickblox Yes QuickBlox Chat SDKs support automatic reconnection and offline message queuing, which ensures that when the connection is lost, messages are held on the server and delivered once the connection is re-established. Read more | Sendbird Yes Sendbird implements connection state recovery through their chat SDKs, which are designed to automatically handle reconnections and message delivery. |
Ecosystem support | |||
Supported realtime protocols | Support for multiple protocols provides the flexibility to choose a protocol that best suits your project’s requirements. | Quickblox
| Sendbird
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Supported languages | Supporting multiple languages and platforms offers greater flexibility when building cross-platform realtime apps. | Quickblox QuickBlox uses multiple programming languages for its UI kits and SDKs, including:
| Sendbird
:cta[Sendbird chat messaging page[(https://sendbird.com/products/chat-messaging/sdk): :ctaGithub page Sendbird blog page |
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. | Quickblox
| Sendbird
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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. | Quickblox Yes QuickBlox SDK sends application-level pings to a user or server, allowing you to track user presence updates and check user status. Read more | Sendbird Yes |
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. | Quickblox No | Sendbird Yes |
Typing indicators | Show when others are typing in a chat room, enhancing realtime communication flow. | Quickblox Yes | Sendbird Yes Sendbird offers text and bubble typing indicators in its SDKs and UI kits. |
Room reactions | Customize the chat environment with reactions and other shared room states. | Quickblox No | Sendbird Yes |
Chat message attributes | |||
Message edits and deletes | Allow users to modify or remove messages. | Quickblox Yes | Sendbird Yes Sendbird supports both deleting and editing messages. It offers options to delete messages individually or clear all messages in a channel and allows users to edit messages directly. |
Message reactions & emoticons | Boost engagement by enabling users to quickly express emotions or feedback on messages. | Quickblox No | Sendbird Yes |
Rich text support | Enhance messages with rich text formatting in chat. | Quickblox Yes QuickBlox UI kits support text formatting for text customization directly within the UI Kit components. Read more | Sendbird No |
Media attachments | Support for sharing images, videos, and files in chat. | Quickblox Yes QuickBlox provides file-sharing functionality through its iOS, Android, and React UI kits. Its Chat API also allows file uploads but doesn't offer a dedicated "media attachment" feature. Read more | |
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. | Quickblox No | Sendbird Yes |
Role-based permissions | Control user roles and permissions to ensure proper access and moderation. | Quickblox Partial QuickBlox supports role-based permissions to some extent. However, the permissions are limited in scope as they primarily cover basic chat and user management actions. Read more | Sendbird Yes Sendbird offers role-based permissions. Users can have different roles based on their participation in chat channels. |
UI kit | Customizable UI elements for a seamless chat integration. | Quickblox Yes | Sendbird Yes Sendbird offers a UI kit called Sendbird UIKit. This toolkit provides pre-built components for rapidly integrating chat functionality. Read more |
Storage and history | |||
Synchronous - automated moderation | Detect and manage harmful content automatically, before the message is broadcast to participants. | Quickblox Yes | Sendbird Yes |
Asynchronous - automated moderation | Detect and manage harmful content automatically, after the message is broadcast to participants. | Quickblox No | Sendbird Yes Sendbird offers rule-based automated moderation to detect and manage harmful content. Its Advanced Moderation combines AI rules with human review. |
Manual moderation via dashboards | Tools for moderators to detect harmful messages and manage them effectively. | Quickblox Partial QuickBlox Trust and Safety (TnS) chat moderation is only available for Enterprise plan users. Read more | Sendbird Yes Sendbird offers a moderation dashboard for manual oversight, allowing moderators to identify and handle harmful content within chat channels by banning users, removing messages, and configuring moderation settings. |
Ban users | Remove problematic users from the chat to maintain a healthy environment. | Quickblox Yes | Sendbird Yes Sendbird offers a feature to ban users from chat channels, which can be applied to both group and open channels, allowing moderators to restrict specific users' participation. |
Dev tools | |||
Programmatic management | Enables the automation of provisioning, management, and testing of service resources, simplifying integration with existing development workflows such as CI. | Quickblox Yes | Sendbird Yes |
Pricing | |||
Pricing model | The pricing model should align with your project's expected load, usage patterns, and budget in order to be cost-effective and efficient. | Quickblox Monthly subscription. QuickBlox's pricing is based on the total number of users registered in your app, whether they are active or not. Read more | Sendbird Sendbird pricing is based on the number of MAUs. Overages apply for additional MAU's and peak concurrent connections over the set quota. Sendbird pricing page |
Pricing illustration | An example price based on 5 live streaming chat events and 50K attendees. | Quickblox Because non-Enterprise Quickblox only supports up to 25k concurrent connections, we are unable to provide a scaled pricing illustration. | Sendbird $25,549.00
Note: Assumes same users attend each event, to keep MAU at minimum. |
Free plan | With a free plan, you can test the service’s functionality and compatibility with your project before committing to a paid plan. | Quickblox | Sendbird Yes The free plan allows a maximum of 100 MAUs and 10 peak concurrent connections. |
Pricing plans | The pricing plans offered by cost. | Quickblox QuickBlox's pricing is based on the total number of users registered in your app, whether they are active or not: Starter: $107/month for up to 10,000 active/inactive registered users. Growth: $269/month for up to 25,000 active/inactive registered users. HIPAA Cloud: $430/month for up to 20,000 active/inactive registered users. Enterprise: From $647 for a custom number of total registered users. :cta:Learn more: | Sendbird
Overages:
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Support for additional realtime features | |||
Pub/Sub messaging | Reduces communication code complexity, simplifying the process of building highly functional and architecturally complex realtime apps. | Quickblox No | Sendbird No |
Collaboration capabilities | Enables you to quickly integrate realtime collaborative features like live cursors, member location, avatar stacks, and component locking. | Quickblox No | Sendbird Yes |
Database sync capabilities | Database sync capabilities enable realtime updates between your database and UI, ensuring the UI reflects changes in the database instantly, with data consistency, and without the need for polling. | Quickblox No | Sendbird No |
Notifications | Send notifications directly to users screens, from chat responses to news alerts, or game updates, whether or not an application is open and running. | Quickblox Yes QuickBlox supports push notifications for iOS and Android apps by integrating with FCM and APNs. Read more | Sendbird Yes |
Asset tracking | State-of-the-art asset tracking across last mile logistics, food delivery applications, and urban mobility services. | Quickblox No | Sendbird No |
Integrations & interoperability | |||
AI models | Allows you to integrate AI models, like GPT, into your app. | Quickblox No | Sendbird Yes Sendbird integrates AI chatbots into apps and websites. It supports the following AI models:
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Serverless functions | Enables integration with third-party cloud providers by facilitating the execution of custom code against messages to perform business logic like on-the-fly translation. | Quickblox No | Sendbird No |
Streaming & queueing | Provides a dependable method to reroute messages from the service to third-party streams and queues for further processing. | Quickblox No | Sendbird Yes Sendbird offers streaming integrations natively using webhooks through its Sendbird Live feature. Read more |
Observability services | Enables realtime monitoring and troubleshooting by offering insights into service behavior directly in your observability platform of choice. | Quickblox No | Sendbird No Sendbird does not provide integrated observability services, such as detailed realtime monitoring. It only offers a status monitoring system where users can track uptime, service incidents, and some historical data. |
Security & compliance | |||
API key authentication | Simplifies the authentication code on trusted servers compared to requesting, managing, and refreshing tokens. | Quickblox Yes | Sendbird Yes Sendbird supports API key authentication for: |
Single Sign-On (SSO) authentication | SSO streamlines login processes, boosts security by minimizing password use, and meets compliance needs for secure data access management. | Quickblox | Sendbird Yes |
Rules for permissions and operations | Provides control over which users can subscribe and publish to certain channels. | Quickblox Yes | Sendbird Yes |
End-to-end encryption | Ensures that the data transmitted between the client and the API server remains confidential and secure while in transit. | Quickblox No QuickBlox does not natively provide E2EE for messaging out of the box. Its realtime chat is secured through TLS to protect data in transit. | Sendbird No Sendbird does not currently offer E2EE for its messaging services. It provide TLS encryption for data in transit and AES256 encryption for files stored on its servers. |
Compliance | Compliance with regulations can impact your ability to meet legal obligations in your industry. | Quickblox | Sendbird Sendbird maintains compliance with four key standards and regulations:
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Disclaimer: This comparison was created based on documentation and resources freely available online about Quickblox and Sendbird. The content was last updated on 16 May 2025 for Quickblox and on 1 May 2025 for Sendbird. 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 Quickblox and Sendbird
While both Quickblox and Sendbird 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 Quickblox
PubNub is a developer API platform that powers the realtime infrastructure in apps to build engaging Virtual Spaces where online communities can connect.

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

CometChat provides rich messaging solutions for apps with features like text, voice, video chat, robust SDKs, and UI kits.
Alternatives to Sendbird
Twilio is a platform that provides developers with a suite of communication tools for building messaging infrastructure in their applications.

Bird (formerly MessageBird) provides SMS, voice, chat, and video APIs for omnichannel communication.
PubNub is a developer API platform that powers the realtime infrastructure in apps to build engaging Virtual Spaces where online communities can connect.
Discover how Quickblox and Sendbird stack up against Ably
Ably is the definitive realtime experience platform of the internet. See how we compare to Quickblox and Sendbird on key dimensions such as core features, pricing, integrations, QoS, performance, and security and compliance.
Try Ably for free to discover the benefits for yourself
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