Mandrill vs Plivo Comparison | StackShare

Overview

Mandrill

Stacks4.4K

Followers1.6K

Votes926

Plivo

Stacks82

Followers157

Votes21

Mandrill vs Plivo: What are the differences?

Developers describe Mandrill as "Send transactional, triggered, and personalized email, then track results". Mandrill is a new way for apps to send transactional email. It runs on the delivery infrastructure that powers MailChimp. On the other hand, Plivo is detailed as "API platform to build Voice & SMS Applications". 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.

Mandrill can be classified as a tool in the "Transactional Email" category, while Plivo is grouped under "Voice and SMS".

Some of the features offered by Mandrill are:

Inbound Email- Set up inboxes for Mandrill to control. When they receive email, we’ll make an API call to your app with all the relevant information, so you don’t have to worry about what’s happening behind the scenes.
Webhooks Support- Create custom event notifications, keep track of new signups and unsubscribes in real-time, get a notice of every spam complaint so you can flag them in your database.
Rules Engine- Modify the content of email coming through Mandrill without having to involve developers. For example, you could tell Mandrill to take any email coming from confirmation@yourdomain.com, give it a new template, and add Google Analytics tracking.

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

Phone- Global
Phone- Local and Tollfree Numbers
Phone- Call routing, call forwarding, caller ID, call waiting, 3-way calling, redial, speed dial, mute, hold, etc

"Simple installation" is the primary reason why developers consider Mandrill over the competitors, whereas "SMS gateway" was stated as the key factor in picking Plivo.

Stripe, Soundcloud, and Hootsuite are some of the popular companies that use Mandrill, whereas Plivo is used by Close, Crowdkeep, and Shiftmates. Mandrill has a broader approval, being mentioned in 2313 company stacks & 208 developers stacks; compared to Plivo, which is listed in 11 company stacks and 8 developer stacks.

Advice on Mandrill, Plivo

Klaus

Jan 22, 2020

Needs advice

For transactional emails, notifications, reminders, etc, I want to make it so writers/designers can set up the emails and maintain them, and then dynamically insert fields, that I then replace when actually sending the mail from code.

I think the ability to use a basic layout template across individual email templates would make things a lot easier (think header, footer, standard typography, etc).

What is best for this? Why would you prefer Mailgun, SendGrid, Mandrill or something else?

101k views101k

Comments

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

Mandrill	Plivo
Mandrill is a new way for apps to send transactional email. It runs on the delivery infrastructure that powers MailChimp.	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.
Inbound Email- Set up inboxes for Mandrill to control. When they receive email, we’ll make an API call to your app with all the relevant information, so you don’t have to worry about what’s happening behind the scenes.;Webhooks Support- Create custom event notifications, keep track of new signups and unsubscribes in real-time, get a notice of every spam complaint so you can flag them in your database.;Rules Engine- Modify the content of email coming through Mandrill without having to involve developers. For example, you could tell Mandrill to take any email coming from confirmation@yourdomain.com, give it a new template, and add Google Analytics tracking.;Advanced Tagging and Reports- Generate custom reports based on the stats that matter to you. Add campaign tags like “confirmation email” and “mailing list,” and combine them with data Mandrill automatically tracks. Tagging allows you to graph sets of data like “bounce rate for confirmation emails to Gmail addresses.”;Meaningful Metrics- Observe trends and monitor delivery to see if you’re on track or if you need to make adjustments. Search by recipient or domain, sort sent email by bounces or rejections, and track opens and clicks.;Status Updates- Troubleshoot from wherever you are, and send status messages to recipients from Mandrill;Mobile Access- Your transactional email is generated at all hours. Mandrill is the only service with a mobile app, so you can monitor your performance even when you’re away from your desk.	Phone- Global;Phone- Local and Tollfree Numbers;Phone- Call routing, call forwarding, caller ID, call waiting, 3-way calling, redial, speed dial, mute, hold, etc;Phone- Bulk Calling;Phone- Recording Calls;Phone- Caller ID;Phone- Call Routing;Phone- Real Time Call Control;Phone- Text to Speech;SMS- Inbound and Outbound;SMS- Message Queuing;SMS- Usage and Debug Logs;SMS- 24/7 Support;SMS- Volume Pricing;SIP- Bring your own carriers or use ours. You are not restricted to using Plivo's carriers.;SIP- Register SIP endpoints directly with Plivo and control them via our APIs.;SIP- Place and receive calls from via the PSTN, SIP URI, and WebRTC (coming soon!)
Statistics
Stacks 4.4K	Stacks 82
Followers 1.6K	Followers 157
Votes 926	Votes 21
Pros & Cons
Pros 189 Simple installation 141 Great api 123 Generous free allowance to get you started 114 Cheap and simple 99 Trackable Cons 1 Really hard to pull analytics out via api	Pros 8 SMS gateway 6 Pricing 3 Voice API service 2 24/7 Support 2 Trial account with positive balance
Integrations
Parse sendwithus	No integrations available

What are some alternatives to Mandrill, Plivo?

Twilio SendGrid

Twilio SendGrid's cloud-based email infrastructure relieves businesses of the cost and complexity of maintaining custom email systems. Twilio SendGrid provides reliable delivery, scalability & real-time analytics along with flexible API's.

Mailgun

Mailgun is a set of powerful APIs that allow you to send, receive, track and store email effortlessly.

Twilio

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.

Amazon SES

Amazon SES eliminates the complexity and expense of building an in-house email solution or licensing, installing, and operating a third-party email service. The service integrates with other AWS services, making it easy to send emails from applications being hosted on services such as Amazon EC2.

sendwithus

Send email from your app with a simple API call, Sendwithus manages the rest. Templates, testing, data management, segments, and analytics are all accessible through a friendly dashboard.

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.

Postmark

Postmark removes the headaches of delivering and parsing email for webapps with minimal setup time and zero maintenance.

Mailjet

Mailjet is a real-time Cloud Emailing platform: scalable, agile and flexible. Our unique algorithm boosts your deliverability and our platform provides in-depth insight so you can optimize more than ever.

SparkPost

SparkPost is the world’s #1 email delivery provider. We empower companies with actionable, real-time data to send relevant email to their customers which increases engagement and both top and bottom line revenue.

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.