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Rails ActionCable vs Twilio

Discover how Rails ActionCable compares to Twilio, and understand which is right for your use case, based on dimensions such as core features, pricing, reliability, and scalability.

Rails ActionCable

What is Rails ActionCable?

Rails Action Cable is a framework built into Ruby on Rails that integrates WebSockets for real-time communication, allowing developers to create interactive applications.

Twilio logo

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 Rails ActionCable and Twilio

Let’s compare Rails ActionCable and Twilio, looking at key dimensions such as their core features, pricing, integrations, QoS, performance, and security and compliance.

Disclaimer:This comparison was created based on documentation and resources freely available online about Rails ActionCable and Twilio. The content was last updated on 25 Oct 2024 for Rails ActionCable and on 30 Oct 2024 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 If you do find anything incorrect or out of date, then please contact us.

Core features
Pub/Sub messaging

Reduces communication code complexity, simplifying the process of building highly functional and architecturally complex realtime apps.

Rails ActionCable

Partial

Supports basic pub/sub via channels.

Twilio

Yes

Twilio offers Stream, which is a pub/sub primitive.

Read more
Chat capabilities

Accelerates the time to implement rich chat experiences with features such as read receipts, typing indicators, and more.

Rails ActionCable

Partial

Rails ActionCable does not have an out-of-the box chat solution, but provides the building blocks for a basic chat implementation, and several resources for self-building specific chat use cases.

Read more
Twilio

Yes

Twilio offers 1-on-1 messaging, group chats, message history, read receipts, typing, and file sharing via its Conversations API.

Collaboration capabilities

Enables you to quickly integrate realtime collaborative features like live cursors, member location, avatar stacks, and component locking.

Rails ActionCable

Partial

Rails ActionCable provides basic support, but lacks advanced features like live cursors or component locking.

Twilio

No

State sync capabilities

Enables realtime data synchronization across devices and users, ensuring a cohesive and up-to-date user experience.

Rails ActionCable

Partial

Rails ActionCable offers basic state sync capabilities, but it does not offer advanced tools to ensure continued synchronization between clients and devices.

Twilio

No

Twilio Sync allows realtime updates for synchronized data across users and devices. However, for database-to-UI state sync, Twilio would require third party products.

Presence

Maintaining a view of which users are connected, and their associated metadata, enables their online status to be updated in realtime.

Rails ActionCable

Partial

Rails ActionCable doesn't offer presence out of the box, but can support presence when custom built on a user appearance channel.

Read more
Twilio

Yes

Twilio offers presence functionality through its Conversations SDK, which has a built-in Reachability Indicator feature.

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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.

Rails ActionCable

No

Twilio

No

Message interactions

Enables interaction with previously-sent messages, facilitating the implementation of features like message reactions and threads.

Rails ActionCable

Partial

Rails ActionCable supports basic message interactions like broadcasting but advanced features like reactions require custom code.

Twilio

Yes

Twilio offers message interactions through its Conversations and Messaging Services. It also provides Flex, which supports messaging interactions through web chat, SMS, Facebook Messenger, and WhatsApp.

Message history

Enables clients to catch up on missed messages when inactive, ensuring a user doesn’t miss any important messages.

Rails ActionCable

No

Twilio

Yes

Twilio allows you to retrieve and modify message history through its Programmable Messaging API.

Push notifications

Cross-platform push notifications make it possible to deliver important and timely messages to users even when they’re inactive.

Rails ActionCable

No

Twilio

Yes

Twilio offers push notifications through its Twilio Notify API.

Message delta compression

Minimizes bandwidth and can reduce latency, particularly in scenarios where continuous updates are sent.

Rails ActionCable

No

Twilio

No

Programmatic management

Enables the automation of provisioning, management, and testing of service resources, simplifying integration with existing development workflows such as CI.

Rails ActionCable

Yes

Rails ActionCable can be managed through Rails.

Twilio

Yes

Pricing
Free plan

With a free plan, you can test the service’s functionality and compatibility with your project before committing to a paid plan.

Rails ActionCable

Yes

The Rails framework, including Rails ActionCable, is completely free and open-source.

Twilio

Yes

Some of (not all) Twilio's services have a free plan. Twilio also offers a free trial.

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.

Rails ActionCable

Completely free, no paid plans.

Twilio

Pay as you go:

  • SMS and MMS start at $0.0079 per message.
  • WhatsApp Business API template messages start at $0.0042, and session messages start at $0.005.
  • Voice APIs: $0.0085/min to receive calls, $0.014/min to make calls.
Integrations & interoperability
SDKs

Supporting multiple languages and platforms offers greater flexibility when building cross-platform realtime apps.

Rails ActionCable
  • Ruby
  • JavaScript
Twilio
  • C#/.NET, Python, Java, NodeJS, PHP, Ruby, Go: Server-side
  • JavaScript: Voice, Conversations, Video, Task-Router, Sync
  • React Native: Voice
  • Android: Voice, Conversations, Video, Sync
  • Authy: Verification
  • Flex: Change UX in Contact Centers
Supported realtime protocols

Support for multiple protocols provides the flexibility to choose a protocol that best suits your project’s requirements.

Rails ActionCable
  • WebSockets
Twilio
  • WebSockets
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.

Rails ActionCable

None.

Twilio
  • Twilio Functions
Streaming & queueing

Provides a dependable method to reroute messages from the service to third-party streams and queues for further processing.

Rails ActionCable

No

Twilio

Yes

Observability services

Enables realtime monitoring and troubleshooting by offering insights into service behavior directly in your observability platform of choice.

Rails ActionCable

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.

CI/CD tools

Makes it possible to provision and configure service infrastructure as part of a CI or CD pipeline, enabling repeatable and reliable deployments.

Rails ActionCable

No

Twilio

No

Quality of Service
Scalability

Scalability is vital as it ensures the service can handle increased data load or users without compromising performance.

Rails ActionCable

No metrics available.

Twilio
  • SMS throughput: Twilio short codes provide throughput starting at 100 MPS, while toll-free numbers start at 3 MPS. This allows sending millions of messages per day.
  • Global reach: Twilio offers various phone number types (e.g., short codes, local numbers, A2P 10DLC) with different capabilities and throughput options for scaling messaging.
Guaranteed message delivery

Ensures messages are never lost during transmission, even in the presence of network disruptions.

Rails ActionCable

No

Twilio

Yes

While Twilio 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.

Rails ActionCable

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.

Rails ActionCable

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.

Rails ActionCable

No uptime SLA.

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
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.

Rails ActionCable

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.

Rails ActionCable

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.

Rails ActionCable

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.

Rails ActionCable

Unknown.

Twilio

Unknown.

Security & compliance
API key authentication

Simplifies the authentication code on trusted servers compared to requesting, managing, and refreshing tokens.

Rails ActionCable

No

Twilio

Yes

Token-based authentication

Provides a means to securely authenticate user devices against your user management system.

Rails ActionCable

No

Twilio

Yes

Twilio uses token-based authentication (JWTs) for client-side SDKs like Voice, Conversations, Sync, and Video.

Single Sign-On (SSO) authentication

SSO streamlines login processes, boosts security by minimizing password use, and meets compliance needs for secure data access management.

Rails ActionCable

No

Twilio

Yes

Twilio offers SSO authentication for customers with a supported Twilio Editions Package.

Rules for permissions and operations

Provides control over which users can subscribe and publish to certain channels.

Rails ActionCable

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.

Rails ActionCable

No

Twilio

No

Encryption at rest

Ensures data stored by the service is secure and compliant, while also mitigating the risks of a data breach.

Rails ActionCable

No

Twilio

Yes

Twilio uses TLS 1.2 to encrypt customer data at rest.

Compliance

Compliance with regulations can impact your ability to meet legal obligations in your industry.

Rails ActionCable

None.

Twilio
  • GDPR
  • HIPAA
  • PCI DSS
  • ISO/IEC

Alternatives to Rails ActionCable and Twilio

While both Rails ActionCable 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 Rails ActionCable

Pusher logo

Pusher is a first-generation pub/sub messaging service that provides bi-directional hosted APIs for adding realtime features to applications.

Socketio logo

Socket.IO is a library that provides realtime, bi-directional communication between clients and servers. It allows the management of connections, sending and receiving messages, and more.

Pubnub logo

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

See more alternatives to Rails ActionCable

Alternatives to Twilio

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

tech provider image

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

tech provider image

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

See more alternatives to Twilio

Discover how Rails ActionCable and Twilio stack up against Ably

Ably is the definitive realtime experience platform of the internet. See how we compare to Rails ActionCable 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