Sendbird vs Twilio
Discover how Sendbird 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 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.
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 Sendbird and Twilio
Let’s compare Sendbird 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. | 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. | Twilio 1000 users can be supported per group. |
Connections | Number of connections that can be handled across the platform. | Sendbird Unlimited - depends on plan. Overages apply if you exceed plan quota - $0.05 per additional user. | Twilio
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Channels / rooms | Number of channels or rooms that can be handled across the platform. | Sendbird Unlimited. | Twilio Unlimited. |
Messages | Number of messages that can be handled across the platform. | Sendbird Unlimited. | Twilio Unlimited. |
Message throughput | Number of messsages that can be published per second. | Sendbird 5 messages per second. | Twilio Unknown. |
Data integrity | |||
Guaranteed message delivery | Ensures messages are never lost during transmission, even in the presence of network disruptions. | Sendbird 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. | Sendbird 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. | Sendbird 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. | Sendbird A 99.9% SLA uptime guarantee is provided on paid plans. | 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. | Sendbird Yes Sendbird has servers deployed across 11 worldwide regions. | 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. | Sendbird 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. | Sendbird 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. | Sendbird 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. | Sendbird No | Twilio No |
Connection state recovery | Automatically re-establish failed connections and replay missed messages. | Sendbird Yes Sendbird implements connection state recovery through their chat SDKs, which are designed to automatically handle reconnections and message delivery. | 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. | Sendbird
| Twilio
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Supported languages | Supporting multiple languages and platforms offers greater flexibility when building cross-platform realtime apps. | Sendbird
:cta[Sendbird chat messaging page[(https://sendbird.com/products/chat-messaging/sdk): :ctaGithub page Sendbird blog page | 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. | Sendbird
| 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. | Sendbird Yes | 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. | Sendbird Yes | Twilio No |
Typing indicators | Show when others are typing in a chat room, enhancing realtime communication flow. | Sendbird Yes Sendbird offers text and bubble typing indicators in its SDKs and UI kits. | 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. | Sendbird Yes | Twilio No |
Chat message attributes | |||
Message edits and deletes | Allow users to modify or remove messages. | 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. | 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. | Sendbird Yes | Twilio |
Rich text support | Enhance messages with rich text formatting in chat. | Sendbird No | 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. | 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. | Sendbird Yes | Twilio No |
Role-based permissions | Control user roles and permissions to ensure proper access and moderation. | Sendbird Yes Sendbird offers role-based permissions. Users can have different roles based on their participation in chat channels. | 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. | Sendbird Yes Sendbird offers a UI kit called Sendbird UIKit. This toolkit provides pre-built components for rapidly integrating chat functionality. Read more | Twilio Yes |
Storage and history | |||
Synchronous - automated moderation | Detect and manage harmful content automatically, before the message is broadcast to participants. | Sendbird 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. | Sendbird Yes Sendbird offers rule-based automated moderation to detect and manage harmful content. Its Advanced Moderation combines AI rules with human review. | 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. | 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. | Twilio No |
Ban users | Remove problematic users from the chat to maintain a healthy environment. | 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. | 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. | Sendbird 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. | 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 | Twilio Twilio has a pay as you go model. |
Pricing illustration | An example price based on 5 live streaming chat events and 50K attendees. | Sendbird $25,549.00
Note: Assumes same users attend each event, to keep MAU at minimum. | 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. | Sendbird Yes The free plan allows a maximum of 100 MAUs and 10 peak concurrent connections. | 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. | Sendbird
Overages:
| 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. | Sendbird No | Twilio No |
Collaboration capabilities | Enables you to quickly integrate realtime collaborative features like live cursors, member location, avatar stacks, and component locking. | Sendbird Yes | 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. | Sendbird 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. | Sendbird Yes | Twilio |
Asset tracking | State-of-the-art asset tracking across last mile logistics, food delivery applications, and urban mobility services. | Sendbird No | Twilio No |
Integrations & interoperability | |||
AI models | Allows you to integrate AI models, like GPT, into your app. | Sendbird Yes Sendbird integrates AI chatbots into apps and websites. It supports the following AI models:
| 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. | Sendbird 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. | Sendbird Yes Sendbird offers streaming integrations natively using webhooks through its Sendbird Live feature. Read more | Twilio No |
Observability services | Enables realtime monitoring and troubleshooting by offering insights into service behavior directly in your observability platform of choice. | 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. | 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. | Sendbird Yes Sendbird supports API key authentication for: | 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. | Sendbird Yes | 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. | Sendbird 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. | 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. | Twilio No |
Compliance | Compliance with regulations can impact your ability to meet legal obligations in your industry. | Sendbird Sendbird maintains compliance with four key standards and regulations:
| Twilio
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Disclaimer: This comparison was created based on documentation and resources freely available online about Sendbird and Twilio. The content was last updated on 1 May 2025 for Sendbird 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 Sendbird and Twilio
While both Sendbird 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 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.
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 Sendbird and Twilio stack up against Ably
Ably is the definitive realtime experience platform of the internet. See how we compare to Sendbird 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