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  4. Voice And SMS
  5. Layer vs Twilio

Layer vs Twilio

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Twilio
Twilio
Stacks11.5K
Followers8.8K
Votes521
Layer
Layer
Stacks15
Followers39
Votes7

Layer vs Twilio: What are the differences?

Developers describe Layer as "Build messaging, voice and video right into your app in minutes". Layer's asynchronous messaging fabric is capable of transporting payloads of any type. Get your users talking with chat, voice or video messaging. Pull them back in with push. Connect friends, colleagues or perfect strangers seamlessly. On the other hand, Twilio is detailed as "Bring voice and messaging to your web and mobile applications". Twilio offers developers a powerful API for phone services to make and receive phone calls, and send and receive text messages. Their product allows programmers to more easily integrate various communication methods into their software and programs.

Layer and Twilio are primarily classified as "Communications SDK" and "Voice and SMS" tools respectively.

Some of the features offered by Layer are:

  • Send any message payload (photos, videos, location, json data, etc) up to 2GB
  • Build your UI quickly with sample UI components to get started
  • User-expected communication features work right out of the box (full message state tracking, typing indicators, read receipts)

On the other hand, Twilio provides the following key features:

  • Phone- Phone Numbers API
  • Phone- Convert Text to Speech and Play Audio
  • Phone- Record Calls and Store Them

"Open source ui atlas makes messaging easy" is the top reason why over 5 developers like Layer, while over 132 developers mention "Powerful, simple, and well documented api" as the leading cause for choosing Twilio.

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Advice on Twilio, Layer

Finch
Finch

Ops at SLS

Jul 23, 2020

Needs adviceonSalesforce Sales CloudSalesforce Sales CloudSalesforceSalesforce

Hey! We need an omnichannel inbox that's housed within Salesforce Sales Cloud that makes it super easy for our reps to respond to inbound communication (needs: clean inbox, provides historical context, etc.). We're a high-volume call center, and we get a ton of incoming SMS and email every day. We'd love a solution that lets us view all of that in one place — ideally Salesforce, as that's where our reps work, and we want to avoid needing them to switch between windows. Thanks!

189k views189k
Comments
Dainis
Dainis

Marketing project manager at Colortime

Jan 31, 2020

Needs advice

Hello! We need to integrate an SMS gateway into our app for user phone verification. As we are just starting, we are searching for the most affordable/best price/performance option for SMS gateway to verify client phone numbers with the code, maybe you can suggest something between those two or maybe something else. We are planning to do business in Europe

135k views135k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

Twilio
Twilio
Layer
Layer

Twilio offers developers a powerful API for phone services to make and receive phone calls, and send and receive text messages. Their product allows programmers to more easily integrate various communication methods into their software and programs.

Layer's asynchronous messaging fabric is capable of transporting payloads of any type. Get your users talking with chat, voice or video messaging. Pull them back in with push. Connect friends, colleagues or perfect strangers seamlessly.

Phone- Phone Numbers API;Phone- Convert Text to Speech and Play Audio;Phone- Record Calls and Store Them;Phone- Create Conferences;Phone- API Queueing;Phone- Call Queues;Phone- Convert Speech to Text;Phone- Usage API;Phone- Status Callbacks and Logs;Phone- Global Reach;SMS- Supports Unicode;SMS- Message Queueing;SMS- Realtime API;SMS- Global Reach;SMS- Status Callbacks and Logs;SMS- Usage metering & API triggers;SMS- Voice Enabled Numbers;SMS- Short Codes;Two-factor authentication;Call tracking;Voice broadcasting;Cloud IVR;Mobile app distribution
Send any message payload (photos, videos, location, json data, etc) up to 2GB;Build your UI quickly with sample UI components to get started;User-expected communication features work right out of the box (full message state tracking, typing indicators, read receipts);Pre-loading of content with background-synchronized state and metadata across devices;Push notifications across platforms and devices with full control over display and delivery;Handles offline mode and poor network conditions with network state management and performance handling
Statistics
Stacks
11.5K
Stacks
15
Followers
8.8K
Followers
39
Votes
521
Votes
7
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 148
    Powerful, simple, and well documented api
  • 88
    RESTful API
  • 66
    Clear pricing
  • 61
    Great sms services
  • 58
    Low cost of entry
Cons
  • 4
    Predictable pricing
  • 2
    Expensive
Pros
  • 6
    Open source ui atlas makes messaging easy
  • 1
    Easy setup
Integrations
Google App Engine
Google App Engine
Bugsnag
Bugsnag
Zendesk
Zendesk
Twilio SendGrid
Twilio SendGrid
Parse
Parse
No integrations available

What are some alternatives to Twilio, Layer?

Chat by Stream

Chat by Stream

Chat API and SDK. With a beautiful UI Kit, easy to use React Components and powerful API. Add Chat to any application in a matter of hours. The tech uses Go, RocksDB and Raft. By the creators of Stream, the API that powers activity feeds for more than 300 million users.

SendBird

SendBird

SendBird is a Messaging SDK, Chat API, and fully managed chat infrastructure for your mobile apps and websites. Embeddable chat for iOS, Android, JavaScript, Unity, .NET.

Nexmo

Nexmo

Nexmo connects your apps directly to carriers around the world. Integrate SMS and Voice messages using one simple API. Use Nexmo Verity to register users, verify transactions, and implement two factor authentication.

Sinch

Sinch

Sinch makes it easy for developers to add voice, messaging and SMS to their apps with just a few lines of code. Enrich your apps with communications that your users will love.

Plivo

Plivo

Plivo provides basic building block APIs in the form of Plivo XML and HTTP API, to create telephony apps, so developers can completely do away with learning the nitty-gritty of the telephony plumbing.

ChannelizeIO

ChannelizeIO

Add In-App User-to-User Communication into Mobile Apps & Websites, with rich & engaging Text Chat, Video, and Audio Calling experiences, to Increase User Engagement and Enable new Revenue Streams.

Agora

Agora

Agora.io provides building blocks for you to add real-time voice and video communications through a simple and powerful SDK. You can integrate the Agora SDK to enable real-time communications in your own application quickly.

OpenTok

OpenTok

It adds the clarity and emotion of face-to-face communication to your brand whether you're developing for the web, iOS, or Android. We make the integration of high-quality live video a breeze so that you can focus on building a great product.

QuickBlox

QuickBlox

Add powerful communication features to your mobile app and data services for your backend<br>

ClickSend SMS

ClickSend SMS

Send and receive SMS globally with the SMS gateway. Trust your business messaging with reliable, direct routes, and lightning fast message delivery.

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