This blog was originally published on DevTools Academy. In this post, I compare Stream and Twilio to help you make an informed decision about which platform suits your communication needs best.
When it comes to communication use cases, developers mostly think of WebRTC or WebSockets, but if you want to use some additional features in communication then most of the software folks go for Twilio.
Twilio is quite popular in the industry, but today let’s dive deep into the solution as well as Stream by creating an automated customer support bot.
In this post, let's compare Twilio against Stream by building an automated customer support bot to see which platform truly delivers.
Let’s get started.
What is Stream
Stream is a developer-friendly platform that empowers you to build scalable and feature-rich in-app communication tools, including chat messaging, video and audio calls, and activity feeds. With modern SDKs, step-by-step tutorials, and seamless AI integrations, Stream simplifies creating tailored chat experiences, integrating generative AI, and delivering reliable communication solutions—all backed by a $100 usage credit every month for risk-free building and testing.
What is Twilio
Twilio is a cloud communications platform that provides APIs for messaging, voice, video, and more. It’s designed to help developers build customer engagement applications.
Twilio and Stream - Communication Solutions for Developers
Stream and Twilio are both products that serve as a solution for devs to integrate communication use cases into apps. Stream is more suitable for real-time messaging and activity feeds, while Twilio is a communications platform that offers different service APIs, such as SMS, voice, video, and chat.
Stream is mostly used for in-app chat use cases, use cases like social apps or e-commerce, and gaming applications.
Twilio is good when it comes to a multi-modal communication API provider.
On Architecture and Scalability
Stream Architecture:
Stream is a wrapper on distributed event-driven architecture optimized for high scale and low latency. Its architecture design uses message queues and distributed data stores to manage high-throughput communication, ensuring real-time delivery and synchronization across users.
Tech Stack:
Backend: Go as a programming language (microservices) with the GRPC protocol.
Data Layer: Cassandra for the data storage and
Real time communication: WebSockets for low-latency communication
Event Streaming: Uses Kafka for event propagation across systems.
Twilio Architecture:
In its early days, Twilio used monoliths, but as the product scaled, Twilio shifted to multi-tenant cloud infrastructure. Twilio offers APIs for SMS, voice, and chat through its globally distributed infrastructure. Reliability and uptime are the most important things for Twilio for critical communications.
Tech Stack
Backend: javascript (NodeJS) and java microservices.
**Data Layer: PostgreSQL as a database and ElasticSearch for analytics,
Global Infra: For low latency, Twilio utilizes its global infra and highly available services
Scalability
Stream handles millions of users, ideal for high-frequency use cases like chats and feeds. Twilio is very good in multi-channel use cases like call management.
Integrations and Capabilities
Stream
APIs: REST and WebSocket APIs for real-time messaging.
SDKs: Extensive support for mobile and web platforms like React, React Native, Flutter, etc.
Customizability: Highly customizable UI components.
Twilio
APIs: REST APIs for SMS, Voice, and Chat.
SDKs: Twilio Conversations SDKs for cross-channel messaging.
Multi-Channel: SMS, MMS, WhatsApp, and email integration.
On Performance and Latency
Stream
Latency: it gives sub-50ms latency for real-time events.
Concurrency: Optimized for 100k+ concurrent connections per channel.
Performance Tools: Supports load balancing and dynamic scaling to ensure consistent performance.
Twilio
Latency: Generally, it’s quite low for SMS and call delivery; real-time chat may have slightly higher latency than Stream.
Reliability: Ensures 99.95% uptime SLA.
Optimization: Global routing ensures minimal message and voice delivery delays.
In the next section, let's explore how to build a customer support bot using these two services 👀
Let’s Build Twilio Customer Support Bot 🧑🍳
Let’s make sure you have prerequisites:
Node.js and npm you will get here
A Twilio account
ngrok or localtunnel now-a-days my personal preference is localtunnel
Clone existing SDK first
Copy1git clone https://github.com/TwilioDevEd/ipm-quickstart-node.git2cd ipm-quickstart-node
set up env variables
Copy1cp .env.example .env
grap the variable from twilio
Copy1# WARNING: Never commit these credentials to version control2 # Store them in a secure environment variable management system3 TWILIO_ACCOUNT_SID=""4 TWILIO_API_KEY=""5 TWILIO_API_SECRET=""
When localtunnel is installed globally, just use the lt command to start the tunnel.
Configuring Twilio Sync
Twilio Sync works out of the box, using default settings per account. Once you have your API keys set, then after that execute npm install; npm run start
Twilio Chat will handle the sending of chat messages from client to client. The product also has
Webhook notifications for when new messages in chat are sent. Using these webhooks user can control whether a message should be delivered or blocked. All this can be done simply by returning different HTTP status codes. Status code 200 (ok) means continue delivering this message and 403 (Forbidden) means block this message. (it’s kinda generic HTTP system) Before the user decides whether to block or move forward a message user will need to access the data that Twilio sends to our application. To do that user first need to parse it first by adding (body-parser) to the project using npm:
npm install body-parser --save
Once the package is installed, add it toindex.js:
Copy1require('dotenv').load();2var http = require('http');3var path = require('path');4var AccessToken = require('twilio').AccessToken;5var IpMessagingGrant = AccessToken.IpMessagingGrant;6var express = require('express');7var bodyParser = require('body-parser');8var randomUsername = require('./randos');9
10// Create Express webapp11var app = express();12app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public')));13
14app.use(bodyParser.json({})) 15app.use(bodyParser.urlencoded({16 extended: true17}));
Copy1app.post('/message', function (req, res, next) {2 console.dir(req.body, { depth: 1 });3 res.sendStatus(200);4});5
6// Create http server and run it7var server = http.createServer(app);8var port = process.env.PORT || 3000;9server.listen(port, function() {10 console.log('Express server running on *:' + port);11});
setup the webhook endpoint with tunnel
Copy1npm install -g localtunnel
now grab the exposed url and setup in the console of the Twilio
Programmatically Control the Messages 💻
Now that you have all the necessary information, let's dive deeper into the control these webhooks provide.
By returning a status code of 403 instead of 200, we can block the respective message.
Next, we'll modify the route to intercept and prevent the delivery of messages starting with /helloworld.
If we want to allow certain messages to go through, we can handle them accordingly.
Copy1require('dotenv').load();2var http = require('http');3var path = require('path');4var Twilio = require('twilio');5var AccessToken = Twilio.AccessToken;6var IpMessagingGrant = AccessToken.IpMessagingGrant;7var express = require('express');8var bodyParser = require('body-parser');9var randomUsername = require('./randos');10
11var client = new Twilio.IpMessagingClient();12var service = client.services(process.env.TWILIO_IPM_SERVICE_SID);13var botName = 'hello';14
15// Create Express webapp16var app = express();17app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public')));18
19app.use(bodyParser.json({})) 20app.use(bodyParser.urlencoded({21 extended: true22}));23
24app.get('/token', function(request, response) {25
26app.post('/message', function (req, res, next) {27 res.sendStatus(200);28
29 if (req.body.Body.toLowerCase().indexOf('/helloworld') === 0) {30 var channel = service.channels(req.body.ChannelSid);31 channel.members.create({32 identity: botName33 }).then(function (response) {34 return channel.messages.create({35 from: botName,36 body: req.body.message37 });38 }).then(function (response) {39 console.log('Bot message sent!');40 }).catch(function (err) {41 console.error('Failed to send message');42 console.error(err);43 });44 }45});46
47// Create http server and run it48var server = http.createServer(app);49var port = process.env.PORT || 3000;50server.listen(port, function() {51 console.log('Express server running on *:' + port);52});
That was all about Twilio. let’s build with Stream now.
Customer Support Bot in Stream
Let's use React for creating the customer support bot using Stream.
so let’s start 🚀
make sure you have installed npm
npx create-react-app getstream-bot
Get the stream API key
Visit Stream and register to get an API key.
For the purpose of this tutorial, we’ll disable auth and permissions checks (note you should obviously not do this in a production app, but it allows you to focus on your chat experience instead of integrating your auth system). Open your stream dashboard , click your app, select “Chat” and disable authentication & permissions:
Enough talking, let’s write the code.
Open the Stream dashboard and copy the environment variables and cloning the repo.
Copy1git clone git@github.com:GetStream/chatbot-tutorial.git2cd chatbot-tutorial
⚠️ Ensure you set up the environment variables by creating a .env.development file.
Copy1# WARNING: Never commit API keys to version control2# Use environment variables in production3REACT_APP_STREAM_API_KEY=replacewithyourstreamapikey4
5now run the project6
7```bash8cd chat-frontend9npm; npm start
The environment file should be structured as follows:
Copy1STREAM_API_KEY=replacewithyourstreamapikey2STREAM_API_SECRET=secret3LUIS_APP_ID=appid4LUIS_SUBSCRIPTION_KEY=subscriptionkey5LUIS_REGION=westus
Key Differences
Setup
Twilio: provides the API for SMS and WhatsApp like third party applications . it’s comparatively easy because it consists of block coding (drag and drop) so any person with no prior coding experience can build something with Twilio . If a user wants to implement AI chatbot, Twilio simplifies integration using webhooks and it’s compatible with OpenAI.
Stream: comes with SDK like React, ReactNative, Flutter etc. Stream is designed for in-app chat-like functions. it requires real-time messaging logic and auth which is mostly managing the UI
Performance
Twilio: optimize for messaging platforms like SMS and WHATSAPP. it has a slightly high latency when compared to stream and its performance is limited to messaging channels.
Stream: Stream is optimized for real-time conversation with low latency. and Stream is highly efficient for handling users and messages it requires to manage WebSockets for real-time updates.
Pricing
Twilio :- Twilio is using the strategy of pay when you use their service i.e. the standard rate of one operation is fixed and that operation is performing n times then the cost will be n x rate
Stream : Stream operates on a standard SaaS model, charging a subscription fee on a monthly basis.
Stream Pricing
Build Plan (Free)
100 MAU, 25 Concurrent Connections
All Chat features included
No credit card required
30 days of free support
Start Plan ($399/month, billed annually or $499 monthly)
10,000 MAU, 500 Concurrent Connections
Advanced Moderation & Filters
Unlimited Message Retention
Global EDGE Network
Offline Support
Data Export
Elevate Plan ($599/month, billed annually or $675 monthly)
10,000 MAU, 500 Concurrent Connections
Multi-Tenancy/Teams
Advanced Search
HIPAA Compliance
Message Translations
Enterprise Plan (Custom pricing)
Scale to millions of users
AI Moderation
99.999% SLA
Dedicated Servers
24/7 Support
SAML/SSO Integration
Stream offers a comprehensive range of features that can scale with your business needs, providing robust solutions for various messaging use cases.
For more details, visit the Stream Pricing page.
Conclusion
Both Twilio and Stream are good, but in their own ways.
Stream is an ideal choice for developers who are looking for in-app chat features. Stream's flexibility allows developers to manage the logic of the chatbot, providing developers greater control over the implementation. Stream's SDKs and APIs make it a go-to solution for building seamless chat experiences directly within the app.
Twilio, on the other hand, is quite good at integrating third-party integrations like WhatsApp or pre-built NLP/chatbot solutions. But if you’re looking for a customizable, developer-friendly approach to in-app chat, Stream is undoubtedly the better choice.
Thank you for reading.
Next Steps
Explore the source code and other resources below to dive deeper into building custom bots and chat solutions:
These repositories and guides provide a good foundation for integrating advanced chat functionality into your apps.
Feel free to experiment, customize, and build solutions to meet your specific needs.
Happy coding.