kalyani sFrom social networks to active workspaces, users need flexible solutions to connect and communicate with each other quickly and safely.
As per the numbers from Statista, over 63% of adults in the US are fond of using group chat functions on their messaging apps, at least once a day.
These increasing numbers call for an important question to chat app developers – ‘Got group messaging in your plan?”
If yes, hang on with us – we’ve compiled the best group messaging APIs that you can instantly add to your chat apps. In this article, we will give a full-rundown of these APIs and the breakdown of their features to help you figure out the best match for your app.
With no further ado, let’s explore them right away!
Table of Contents
Top 10 Group Messaging API & SDK Providers [Best 2023 Chat Reviews]
1.Sendbird
If you are looking for a group chat API that makes messaging fun and safe at the same time, Sendbird proudly stays on the top of our list.
Their easy-to-use APIs and native chat SDKs let’s you implement group chats into any Android, iOS, and Web apps and on any device.
They help you create a highly scalable group chat environment with the most robust features you can find on the market.
Why Should You Choose Sendbird’s Group Messaging APIs?
SendBird has plenty to offer Chat App Developers, like:
- With Sendbird, you can create private groups that can connect more than 20,000 users at the same time.
- You can host public groups with more than a million concurrent users at the same time.
- Another interesting feature from Sendbird is – Smart Throttling. Using this feature, you can set the number of messages in a group conversation.
- SendBird provides a moderation dashboard, where admins/ moderators can monitor and control user activities across their groups
What are the Pricing Plans of SendBird?
There are 3 pricing plans from Sendbird:
- Developer: SendBird lets developers try all their pro features with up to 100 MAUs (Monthly Active Users) and 10 peak concurrent connections.
- Starter 5K: For $399/ month, you can enjoy all the modern messaging essentials from 5K users along with basic moderation features and ticket support
- Pro 5K: This package suits you the best if you are running a small or medium-scale business. The package starts from $599/ month and lets you enjoy advanced moderation features and message translation
- Enterprise: If you’d like to take the in-app conversations of your enterprise to the next level, this package works best for you. You can avail of this package with custom pricing with millions of MAUs.
Overall, if you are building a group chat app, we recommend you Sendbird’s APIs for their best concurrency and interaction-rich features.
2.MirrorFly
MirrorFly’s chat messaging APIs are built with user experience in mind. With MirrorFly, developers will be able to implement the group chat features that users expect from a modern messaging platform.
When your brand grows, you need not worry about the scalability of your group chat. You can expand the participant count rapidly with MirrorFly’s APIs.
Apart from this, they are well known to accommodate a million concurrent users, with no compromise of the speed of message deliveries.
Why Should You Choose MirrorFly’s Group Messaging APIs?
MirrorFly heavily focuses on delivering the best messaging experiences to its users with a perfect balance on chat security. They let you:
- Create infinite groups across any device and on any operating system.
- Protects conversations end to end with AES encryption. Also, MirrorFly APIs are GDPR and HIPAA-compliant.
- Provides Real-time message translation – which means users can instantly translate messages into 100+ native languages
- Powerful chat moderation: MirrorFly ensures that admins or moderators have complete control over the conversations in a group. They have authorities like banning users or groups that do not align with the sanity of the app.
What are the Pricing Plans of MirrorFly?
MirrorFly stands out from other providers in offering both SaaS and Saab pricing plans to developers. You can avail their Group Chat APIs using one of their 4 packages:
SaaS Plans:
MirrorFly lets you try all of its features for free up to 21 days. After the trial period, you may have to select one of their packages to continue with their features further:
- Essential: For a $ 299/Per month, you can avail all the modern messaging essentials for your group chat app
- Growth: With $ 699 /Per month, you can add all the messaging essentials along with voice and video call functions
- Premium: Apart from features in the Growth pack, you can avail group calls into your apps for $ 999/Per month
SaaP Plan:
This plan is suitable for you if:
- You need custom features for your team chat apps. Or,
- If you are migrating from other providers with features that you don’t wish to give up
Self-Managed:
Avail the chat features you need at custom pricing
So yes! by integrating MirrorFly’s Chat APIs, you can increase engagement within your group chat app and take the messaging experiences of users to a new level.
3.GetStream
If you completely focus on implementing only messaging for multiple users, Getstream is a great option for you.
Their APIs are easy to use and lets you add group chats with just a few lines of code. This way, you can take your group chat app to the market faster than you estimate.
Above this, Getstream is proud to create SDK components that can be reused in any part of your code. This lets you hit the market with beautifully designed user interfaces and out-of-the box chat features, just right on time!
Why Should You Choose Getstream’s Group Communication APIs?
If you choose to go with Getstream, you’ll get:
- Getstream lets you connect over 5 million users in the same channel, without any issues with the speed and performance of the chat
- Like any other API, Getstream abides to privacy and security compliances like GDPR, HIPAA and SOC2
- Multi-tenancy mode that allows you to organize participants into different groups. This mode does not allow users from one group to participate in other groups without authentication.
Getstream’s Pricing Plans:
To show you a sample of what their APIs could provide, Getstream offers a 30 day free trial of its features. After which, you may have to choose one of their plans:
- Startup: This pack costs $499/month and includes all the messaging essentials for upto 10,000 MAUs.
- Standard: Expands its features and MAUs to 25000 for $1,299/month
- Premium: Allows upto 50000 MAUs with additional features for $2,299/month
- Enterprise: This package allows you to select the features of your choice and pay only for them. It allows over 100,000 MAUs.
Getstream APIs are great for building core messaging functions into apps. That is why we recommend it to developers interested in adding exceptional group chats to their apps.
4.Twilio
Twilio aims to hit different markets with its flexible chat APIs. It connects several users into distinct channels and makes communication easy in various facets.
Whether it is a mobile device or a web browser, Twilio helps you build an immersive chat for multiple users, without any lag or delay in the pace of conversations. Let’s explore the many different features that make Twilio a great API to use.
Why Should You Choose Twilio’s Team In App Chat Solution?
- Twilio uses its intelligent network softwares that can monitor over 900 data points to keep the conversations reliable and secure.
- It manages the compliance and deliverability of the conversations with its programmable APIs
- Provides features like delivery notifications, passcode verifications and lets you send marketing messages to target audiences.
Twilio’s Pricing Plans:
Twilio charges for their APIs per user as follows:
- Usage: For 1 user, Twilio charges $0.05/ month
- Storage: For 1 GB of images, video or documents, Twilio charges $0.25/ month
Overall, If you are interested in building live messaging into your apps involving multiple users, then Twilio is the best-in-class-option for you.
5.Pubnub
PubNub is everything that a developer looks for, in building out-of-the-box in-app chat experiences.
If you are planning to launch a virtual event with a large audience, or a marketplace, PubNub’s group chat APIs are always a go. As it’s reliable, it’s efficient, and it’s fast.
Plus, their messaging APIs allow you to add functionalities like push notifications, sentiment analysis, typing indicators, and more to group chats.
Why Should You Choose PubNub’s Group Chat Solution?
With their platform, developers will have access to a plethora of benefits, starting right from:
- Lowest latency ever as its APIs are known for 99.999% SLA. There arises no worries about delays or outages.
- Pre-built chat components that help in creating engaging apps with minimal time.
- Unmatched security through end-to-end encryption mechanisms, authorization schemes, attack prevention, and compliance.
- Unlimited concurrent and channel limits that help boost business growth.
- WebSocket server costs are handled by PubNub itself.
Pubnub’s Pricing Plans:
Ready to kick-start with PubNub? Then, below are their pricing levels:
- Free: This plan gets you access to unlimited concurrent connections and all chat additions. To name a few; read receipts, presence, live polls, group chats, and more. But what lags is the API latency and uptime levels. You can test your code with up to 200 MAUs.
- Starter: Starting at $49 per month, you will have access to all of the Free plus, options to launch a small-scale app and test with full controls. The MAU pricing is as usual but lets you upgrade as you scale.
- Pro: Gets you access to all of the Starter plans plus custom pricing for use cases. Customize features anytime, get dedicated technical support from experts, and effortlessly scale as you grow. PubNub hasn’t disclosed the pricing for this plan.
Got a hold of what this API provider would offer? If you wish to tune-out customer engagements in your apps, PubNub has to be your buddy. With them, users keep coming back!
6.Apphitect
There’s always a provider that works to understand user needs and evolve accordingly. Apphitect belongs to this category of chat API providers.
Apphitect put up its show in 2008 and since then, it has been delivering state-of-the-art chat features to different apps. If you’d like to bring rich group messaging features to your users table, then this provider would be your wisest choice.
Why Should You Choose Apphitect’s Commuicaiton SDK?
- Achieving low-latency is one of the prime focuses for every chat API provider. But Apphitect hits it with ease even for its group chats.
- If you’d like to allow users to sync their chat and store them, Apphitect APIs offers you the flexibility without limits.
- Join Links is one another flexibility that Apphitect offers in group chats. Users can easily join the links and start their conversations on the go.
Apphitect’s Pricing Plans:
Apphitect offers 2 different pricing options:
- Pay as you go pricing: The pricing of Apphitect starts from $ 299/Per month for upto 5k MAUs. You can pay only for the features you use, by choosing one of their 3 pricing plans.
- One-time License Cost: Apart from a SaaS plan, Apphitect offers a custom pricing plan. You can choose only the specific features you need and pay only for them. This best suits enterprise apps involving millions of users.
7.Cometchat
Unlock the power of communications with CometChat’s APIs that are known to offer rock-solid chat, voice, and video functionalities.
From letting you create fun group chats to an interactive live session, their group chats APIs come loaded with modern features users will want in their chat apps.
An example of the above-said would be; 1-to-1 & group text chat, typing indicators, presence indicators, customer support chats, and rich media attachments.
Why Should You Choose CometChat’s Team Group Video Call Solution?
Here’s what you will find on using CometChat:
- Secure connections to the provider’s server with a few snippets of codes.
- You can easily integrate group chat APIs onto web, Android, and iOS platforms.
- Supports a single sign-on (SSO) mechanism for enhanced authentication. This mechanism doesn’t allow users to hold multiple sets of login credentials.
- Till date, CometChat holds a repository of over 10M monthly active users in its database.
- Best-in-class APIs with an utmost uptime of 99%.
- Another feature is allowing developers to send customized messages across user groups.
Cometchat’s Pricing Plans:
The pricing model of CometChat is quite different from the rest as they go with the saying, “Try us for free forever”. Well, if you are ready to launch, these plans would come in handy:
- Startup: Suited well for small-scale enterprises, it comes with a price tag of $149/mo. Includes UI kits, GDPR compliances, SSL/TLS encryption mechanisms, and only key in-app messaging features
- Growth: Known to be the most popular amongst businesses, delivers its features at $399/mo. It covers all of the Startup plans plus moderation features, whiteboard sharing, message translations, and Email + SMS notifications.
- Scale: Best suited for well-established apps and to avail this plan, a payment of $ 749 will be billed per month. All features of the Growth plan along with a few like voice transcription, polls and smart replies, sentiment analysis, and HIPAA compliance are said to cover under this.
- Custom Pricing: Need requirements as per your business needs? Then go for this plan that holds all features of the Scale plan with a benefit to scale millions of users, shared or on-premise deployment, and 99.9% uptime SLA.
Were you aware that CometChat is trusted by 50,000 developers globally? Join me in for its scalability, easy integrations, and flexible deployments.
8.Quickblox
If you’re looking for a cheaper group chat APIs, Quickblox might be a great option for you. This provider is ideal for developers looking for an API provider with easy-to-integrate APIs.
These are APIs built to be developer-friendly. This means, whether you are a beginner or an expert developer, you’d be able to add these SDK components with just a few lines of code.
Guess what? This will take your app to the market within less than an hour!
Now, let’s look at what Quickblox can offer you:
Why Should You Choose Quickblox’s Sports Chat Service?
Here’s what you will find on using CometChat:
- Quickblox is built on XMPP (Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol) technology that helps you build immersive group chat features in real-time.
- It is easy to build real-time chat for more than a hundred users with Quickblox APIs.
- The APIs are available in different programmable languages, making it easy to integrate into any app without coding complexities.
Quickblox’s Pricing Plans:
Quickblox offers 5 different pricing plans as follows:
- Basic : Free for 500 users/ month
- Starter : $99 /month for 10000 total users
- Growth : $249 /month for 25000 total users
- HIPAA Cloud: $399 /month for 50000 total users
- Enterprise: This custom package starts from $599
In short, Quickblox works great as when you expect chat APIs that are flexible to your budget. As an added bonus, you may also try their Q-municate app that’s popular for their secure messaging services.
9.Agora
Agora has been a market changer in providing the best chat, voice, and video solutions. And, if you are a keen-to-try developer who aims to elevate chat experience for users, look no further than Agora.
Their APIs are easy-to-integrate and lets you add group chat features with just a few snippets of code. Adding to this, Agora is one such provider that supports third-party add-ons to their apps for added functionalities.
Will Agora suit you as they say? Let us take a look at some of the features they offer.
Why Should You Choose Agora’s Group Messaging APIs?
Besides fast integration & improving customer retention, they also:
- Give users fast, steady, and high-quality streaming without any delays.
- Lets you scale as you grow. They also help in smooth expansion when there is a sudden increase in user base.
- Offer extreme reliability with 99.99% SLA uptime.
- Provide developer-friendly pricing; meaning the first 10,000 minutes a month are free.
Agora’s Pricing Plans:
With Agora, you will pay only for the services you use, without any upfront charges. Its flexible payment modules for real-time chats go as follows:
- Free: It is free for the first 1000 DAU users (Daily Active Users) every month.
- Chat (Public Beta): They have not specified the pricing level for this plan. For more information, please reach out to their sales team.
So, if you are interested in building a chat app without any compromise on security, Agora would be the best choice.
10.Mesibo
Mesibo is one such in-app communication provider that has hidden multiple features in its hood.
Yes, you heard it right! They have indeed been reinventing the telecom field with their niche chat APIs, SDKs, and UI kits.
Whether you want to create a social app to discuss similar ideas, an e-learning portal, or a healthcare app, they make real-time communication a hit. All thanks to their group chat APIs for turning them to a reality!!
Adding to their perks, other chat features that make them a stand-out are – paired chats, chat rooms, chatbots, hunt groups, and anonymous chats.
Why Should You Choose Mesibo’s Group Communication Software?
Is Mesibo as rich as they picture themselves? Let us see makes them unique from the rest:
- They go way flexible. Be it integrations on different platforms or the verticals they cater to, Mesibo has always been a strong contender.
- Their levels of scalability remain unmatched with a scope to handle 1M+ concurrent connections per day.
- End-to-end encryption mechanisms to restrict any type of information tamper or cyberattack.
- Use of carrier grade infrastructure for smooth functioning of application. With this technology, Mesibo achieves 100% uptime with no delay in message delivery.
- Includes a unique group chat feature- hunt groups. It is known to work in round-robin fashion, where in a group, only one person will receive a query from the customer.
Mesibo’s Pricing Plans:
Mesibo is initially Free to start, then get billed as you scale. They offer two pricing options based on app-hosting:
- On-premise Deployment: This pricing comes applicable when you deploy Mesibo on your premises. Here, get access to unlimited concurrent connections, voice & video calling features, and free real-time bandwidth charges. Your messages will be retained till your account is active. And, Mesibo, doesn’t impose any restriction on file size during a transfer.
- Cloud Deployment: This pricing comes into action when you deploy your Mesibo app on-cloud. They have given different pricing for varied features. For more information on this, see their pricing page.
Therefore, we suggest this API provider if your apps are to support billion conversations per day. Even if you scale, you need not worry as Mesibo is massively scalable!
Conclusion
So, there you have it – the best list of group messaging APIs!
To give a quick recap, we gave you a detailed analysis of the top 10 group messaging APIs in the market. From their best features to their best cost, we ran a full breakdown of the providers.
From our stand, if you focus on feature-richness, Sendbird and Cometchat might work great for you. If chat app security is what you’ll need, we’d recommend you Getstream and Agora.
Whereas, you’ll need a comprehensive solution of security, scalability and feature-richness, we’d call out MirrorFly for you.
However, the decision solely depends on your requirements and we’ll be right here to help you with it. So get quick, compose your plan and build the best chat apps with the most suitable group messaging APIs. Good luck!
Related Posts: