Quickblox vs Twilio
Discover how Quickblox 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 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 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.
Compare Quickblox and Twilio
Let’s compare Quickblox and Twilio, 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 | Twilio 1000 users can be supported per group. |
Connections | Number of connections that can be handled across the platform. | Quickblox Unknown. | Twilio
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Channels / rooms | Number of channels or rooms that can be handled across the platform. | Quickblox Unlimited. | Twilio Unlimited. |
Messages | Number of messages that can be handled across the platform. | Quickblox Unknown. | Twilio Unlimited. |
Message throughput | Number of messsages that can be published per second. | Quickblox | Twilio Unknown. |
Data integrity | |||
Guaranteed message delivery | Ensures messages are never lost during transmission, even in the presence of network disruptions. | Quickblox 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. |
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 | 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 |
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 | 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 |
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. | Twilio
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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 | 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. |
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 | Twilio Yes Twilio provides multi-region data replication to enhance message durability. |
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 | 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. |
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. | Twilio 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 | Twilio 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 | Twilio Yes Twilio provides reconnection states and events for Twilio Video applications through the Twilio Video SDK. Read more |
Ecosystem support | |||
Supported realtime protocols | Support for multiple protocols provides the flexibility to choose a protocol that best suits your project’s requirements. | Quickblox
| Twilio
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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:
| Twilio
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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
| Twilio |
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 | Twilio Yes Twilio offers presence functionality through its Conversations SDK, which has a built-in Reachability Indicator feature. Read more |
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 | Twilio No |
Typing indicators | Show when others are typing in a chat room, enhancing realtime communication flow. | Quickblox Yes | 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 |
Room reactions | Customize the chat environment with reactions and other shared room states. | Quickblox No | Twilio No |
Chat message attributes | |||
Message edits and deletes | Allow users to modify or remove messages. | Quickblox Yes | Twilio Yes Twilio Conversations allows users and any conversation participant (based on role permissions) to edit and delete messages. Read more |
Message reactions & emoticons | Boost engagement by enabling users to quickly express emotions or feedback on messages. | Quickblox No | Twilio |
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 | Twilio Yes Twilio supports rich text formatting via lightweight markup only for WhatsApp chats through its Programmable Messaging. Read more |
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 | Twilio Yes |
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 | Twilio No |
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 | 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. |
UI kit | Customizable UI elements for a seamless chat integration. | Quickblox Yes | Twilio Yes |
Storage and history | |||
Synchronous - automated moderation | Detect and manage harmful content automatically, before the message is broadcast to participants. | Quickblox Yes | Twilio Yes Not natively supported but possible via third-party integrations. |
Asynchronous - automated moderation | Detect and manage harmful content automatically, after the message is broadcast to participants. | Quickblox No | Twilio Yes Not natively supported but possible via third-party integrations. |
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 | Twilio No |
Ban users | Remove problematic users from the chat to maintain a healthy environment. | Quickblox Yes | Twilio |
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 | Twilio 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 | Twilio Twilio has a pay as you go model. |
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. | Twilio $1300.
Using Twilio Conversations. |
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 | Twilio Yes Some (not all) of Twilio's services have a free plan.
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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: | Twilio
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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 | Twilio No |
Collaboration capabilities | Enables you to quickly integrate realtime collaborative features like live cursors, member location, avatar stacks, and component locking. | Quickblox No | Twilio No |
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 | Twilio 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 | Twilio |
Asset tracking | State-of-the-art asset tracking across last mile logistics, food delivery applications, and urban mobility services. | Quickblox No | Twilio No |
Integrations & interoperability | |||
AI models | Allows you to integrate AI models, like GPT, into your app. | Quickblox No | Twilio No |
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 | Twilio
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Streaming & queueing | Provides a dependable method to reroute messages from the service to third-party streams and queues for further processing. | Quickblox No | Twilio No |
Observability services | Enables realtime monitoring and troubleshooting by offering insights into service behavior directly in your observability platform of choice. | Quickblox No | Twilio Yes Twilio provides observability through insights and monitoring dashboards for voice, messaging, and flex. The dashboards give metrics like time range, delivery status, messaging traffic, errors, responses, etc. |
Security & compliance | |||
API key authentication | Simplifies the authentication code on trusted servers compared to requesting, managing, and refreshing tokens. | Quickblox Yes | Twilio Yes |
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 | Twilio Partial Twilio offers Single Sign-On (SSO) authentication for customers with a supported Twilio Editions package. Read more |
Rules for permissions and operations | Provides control over which users can subscribe and publish to certain channels. | Quickblox Yes | Twilio Yes Twilio manages permissions and operations through its Console and Access Control features. |
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. | Twilio No |
Compliance | Compliance with regulations can impact your ability to meet legal obligations in your industry. | Quickblox | Twilio
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Disclaimer: This comparison was created based on documentation and resources freely available online about Quickblox and Twilio. The content was last updated on 16 May 2025 for Quickblox 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 Quickblox and Twilio
While both Quickblox 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 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 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.
Discover how Quickblox and Twilio stack up against Ably
Ably is the definitive realtime experience platform of the internet. See how we compare to Quickblox and Twilio 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