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SendBird Alternatives - SendBird vs Competitors
SendBird Alternatives and Competitors

SendBird Alternatives - SendBird vs Competitors

Dead Simple Chat Team

Table of Contents

If you are looking for a Chat solution to add to your app or website. You might be considering SendBird or one of its competitors.

Here we have done an extensive and detailed run down of all the chat API and SDK solutions, and there is a wide variety of them available in the market from Pre-Built ones to one the comes packaged with Video and Voice Chat apis and SDK

SendBird API: An Introduction

Sendbird is a Chat  that has become a multi product company with products such Chat, voice and video calling and live streaming.

Although first started as a Chat  company which has diversified into multiple products and services

SendBird offers Group chat, 1-1 Chat and chat for various use cases

SendBird is a good solution but not perfect and as well shall see not suited to everyone. We will explore the notable options in the market

Unique Selling points of SendBird

  1. Started in 2013. One of the Original Chat providers
  2. One of the Market Leaders
  3. Lots of Features
  4. Scalability: Up to 20,000 Concurrent users
  5. Moderation Tools: Hide, ban, mute users etc

Drawbacks of SendBird

  1. Have to choose a region.  No Auto Geo Location
  2. 99.9% uptime with 99.999% Uptime as an add-on
  3. Expensive Prices start around 400USD /mo
  4. Max 20,000 users in a single chat room
  5. Features are disabled in larger user plan

Support

Sendbird provides free email support plus there are paid support like slack channels, forum and 24X7 paid support etc

There are four paid support plans Base, Silver, Gold and Platinum. Emergency hotline is only available in Gold and Platinum

Pricing

There are two pricing tiers in SendBird

Starter Plans is from around 400 USD / month for 5000 MAU but does not includes advanced features like translations and advanced moderation

Pro Plans start around 600 USD / month for 5000 MAU

SendBird Vs DeadSimpleChat

DeadSimpleChat is the most scalable, reliable and value offering in the market

Scalable: With capacity to have 10 Million Concurrent users in a single chat, DeadSimpleChat is the most scalable chat api out there.

Reliable: With 99.999% Uptime in all the plans, DeadSimpleChat API is the most reliable Chat API provider out there

Pricing: There are 2 tiers the Growth Plans start at 200 USD / mo for 5000 MAU and the business plan starts at 369 USD / month for 5000 MAU

Ease of use : DeadSimpleChat as the name implies is pretty easy to use. DeadSimpleChat has complete suite of Chat APIs and SDKs plus you can control the app using the UI based interface as well.

Features : Some of the features that are unique to DeadSimpleChat are Scalability (DeadSimpleChat Scales to 10 Million Concurrent users in a single chat) where as SendBird Scales to 20,o00.

Features include UI based interface and extensive documentation and easy of use. You set up the chat and start using it within minutes

the amount and depth of customization available is immense plus there are all the other features like moderation, scalability, Group and 1-1 chat, webhooks

Support: DeadSimpleChat support team is staffed with developers that have extensive knowledge of the chat API and SDK platform, so your questions are resolved quickly and easily

Plus there is Reliability with 99.999% Uptime (Sendbird also offers this but you need to pay extra) whereas in DeadSimpleChat it comes with all the plans

Unique Features of DeadSimpleChat

  1. 10 Million Concurrent users in Single Chat
  2. All features are available in chat with large amount of users
  3. 99.999% Uptime available in all plans
  4. UI Based Interface also available to control the chat
  5. Starts around $99 USD per month
  6. Chat API, SDK and Pre built Chat also available
  7. Offers free 24x7 support and integration support and help as well

Moderation: DeadSimpleChat has AI based moderation capabilities

Support: DeadSimpleChat offers excellent free support for integration and 24X7 Phone support that is a paid add on

For a Complete list of features you can visit the DeadSimpleChat  Chat API and SDK website

Reliability :

Pricing: With Regards to pricing Sendbird is a bit more expensive than DeadSimpleChat

The Pricing for SendBird Start at $399 USD for starter and $599 USD for Pro

While DeadSimpleChat Pricing starts at $99 USD for Growth and $369 USD for Business

Both offer Free Plans as well

Drawbacks of DeadSImpleChat

  • Does not offer any other product like live feeds or video calling etc

SendBird Vs StreamChat

Stream Chat is another competitor for SendBird.

Stream Chat started as a live feed provider and then went in to the business of chat api

whether you are a large enterprise or a start up stream chat allows you to build a custom chat experience for your application

Unique Features of StreamChat

  1. 5 Million Concurrent users
  2. More expensive than SendBird with pricing starts at around 500 USD/ mo
  3. Also provides Activity feeds if you need that kind of product

Disadvantages of StreamChat

  1. Pricing is a disadvantage because stream chat is quite expensive
  2. Support channels are available but they are all paid support
  3. Reliability is only 99.99% and there is a paid add on for 99.999% reliability

SendBird Vs Twillio

Twillio is a another good option if you are considering other products along with chat like video calling api and email and sms and other stuff

Twillio is a listed company with a large consumer base, its chat offering is good but quite complex to integrate

If you are a company looking for email, sms, video and audio calling and communication systems then you can find everything in one roof with Twillio

Unique Selling points of Twillio

  1. Large enterprise offering a whole host of solutions
  2. Video calling, Audio Calling, SMS, email and chat all under one platform
  3. Big eco system of developers working on Twillio products

Drawbacks of Twillio

  1. Complex product is hard to integrate
  2. Chat is not Scalable above 5000 concurrent users
  3. terse documentation

SendBird Vs Agora

Agora started out as a Video Call and Audio Calling API and sdk provider

then went into other segments as well such as chat api, live streaming and and Interactive whiteboard

Although a new player it has experience in video and audio calling apis and sdk

It is new thus offers cheaper pricing and discounts on chat

Pricing: the pricing starts at 349 USD /mo  and the Pro plans start at around 700 USD /mo

Support: Agora offers support that is email and paid support tiers

Unique selling points of Agora Chat

  1. If you are using Agora video api then its a good complementary product
  2. Offers all the standard chat features including SSL TLS security
  3. Constantly coming out with new features such as moderation etc that other platforms already have

Drawbacks of Agora chat

  1. New Player in Chat
  2. Does not have a lot of features
  3. Does not have dedicated uptime
  4. Is not that scalable

SendBird Vs PubNub

PubNub is a real time communications platform, as compared to SendBird which is focused on chat plus other services

By real time communication, It offers multi users gaming, location tracking and other apps that require real time connectivity can be powered using PubNub

Which means that you can certainly create chat with PubNub as well.  you can look at it like a socket server that you can use to build any real time apps

With respect to chat this increases complexity and development time as you get a realtime service but you need to built most of the features and functions yourself

Unique features and selling points of PubNub

  1. Versatality: While SendBird focuses only on chat, PubNub offers a variety of other features like location tracking and multiplayer gaming etc
  2. Serverless environment: PubBub provides the server, so you don't really need to worry about that.
  3. Multiplexing: PubNub can do multiplexing which means that

Drawbacks of PubNub

  1. Complexity: As PubNub is a real time communications platform it is not optimised for chat alone and hence introduces complexity for the developer
  2. Pricing: PubNub sells through sales reps and thus has opaque pricing model and you don't how the pricing will be as you scale
  3. Features: PubNub is not optimized for chat alone hense lacks some chat specific features that other providers might have.

Support:

PubNub offers various support plans such as gold and platinum etc all of these are paid plans and offer support at quite expensive pricing

Reliability:

PubNub saus their platform is 99.999% reliable but it is not clear if this reliability is a paid option or comes with basic plans as well

SendBird Vs FireBase

Firebase os a company bu google that provides real time database and cloud storage for building mobile and web applications

Firebase also integrates well with other google products such as Google Ads and analytics platforms etc

While both firebase and Sendbird provide services that can be used in app development but are a bit different

Comprehensive development Platform While SendBird focuses on Chat the firebase is focused on any kind of real time app development thea t you might want to do

Firebase provides a set of tools for development of real time applications such as database, cloud storage, firebase cloud messaging, performance monitoring Analytics etc

Cost Google product is a bit cheaper and provides a generous free teir but remember it is a development platform and that sense you have to do most of the development as compared to SendBird which is focused on chat where SendBird gives you the building blocks of chat and you just need to join them.

Drawbacks of Firebase

  1. lack of dedicated chat solution; As stated before the Firebase lacks a dedicated chat solution and provides just the building blocks of chat while the sendbird provides a complete chat solution. Only DeadSimpleChat provides a better solution than SendBird in terms of completion and easy of use
  2. Data Migration: If in the fututre to you decide to migrate away form Firebase it could become quite complex and the data structure of Firebase is unique to firebase and cannot be easily ported to other systems

You might be interested in some of our other articles:

Conclusion

In this article we discussed the alternatives to SendBird Chat and the best alternative to SendBird Chat is DeadSimpleChat Chat API and SDK