11 ms·

Why choose Tropo over Twilio

110 points by blitzo 16y ago

ericb 16y ago
I was looking at creating an IVR monitoring tool. I would like to 1-make a call every hour, 2-record the response, and ideally 3-verify the response matches the expected. Thoughts? It looks like twilio and tropi might be able to do this (although I wasn't sure they weren't more focused on inbound), but the 1 cent price is prohibitive for what people might pay per-month especially at higher monitoring frequencies. Anyone have other solutions that are reasonably simple? edit: If I did run adhearsion/asterisk, what do I just have to connect it to a phone line? Vague on the setup needed to do this...
- akalsey 16y ago
  NuGram makes a product designed for just that. You could certainly build something yourself using either a hosted service like Tropo or using Asterisk, but using something purpose built may work better. We use NuGram to test things. If you run an asterisk server the easiest way to get it hooked up to the phone network is by setting up a SIP account for it.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - ericb 16y ago
    Thanks for the recommendations! How is the pricing on NuGram? Is this it? http://www.grammarserver.com/welcome http://www.grammarserver.com/welcome I'm finding their descriptions a bit opaque. Do you remember the product name off hand? Do they host it, or do I need to look into learning what an SIP is? :-)
    - akalsey 16y ago
      Grammar Server is a product they make for building and managing speech recognition grammars. It's pretty awesome, too, and any recognition grammars you create can be used with Tropo. NuBot is the IVR testing product http://www.nuecho.com/content/view/28/147 http://www.nuecho.com/content/view/28/147 I'm not sure of the cloud per minute pricing, but they'll likely be pretty responsive on email. They're a good group of people.
      - _pdeschen 16y ago
        Disclaimer: I'm one of Nu echo's founders and lead architect for our IVR testing and monitoring tool suite (NuBot and Mirador). Thanks Adam, That is surely yet another point in favor of Tropo. They test. Using our NuBot Platform, we have load test their infrastructure with several concurrent calls. A few issues came up and Voxeo promptly fixed the issues. Case closed. Tremendous support. I don't know about Twilio in such regard. A few months back, I have offered Twilio our load testing services but I haven't heard of them so far. Danielle, Jeff, if you read this, drop me a note (pdeschen @ nuecho dot com) and we'll be pleased to load test your infra! :-) Pascal
    - schemeway 16y ago
      NuGram (www.grammarserver.com) is a hosted platform used to host and share speech recognition grammars (both static and dynamic, i.e. grammar templates) for use by hosted IVR platforms (Tropo, Voxeo Prophecy, etc.) It's totally free, although it's not really meant for production use as of now. If you need it in production, please contact me at dominique DOT boucher AT nuecho DOT com. From it's companion site, nugram.nuecho.com, you can also download a complete Eclipse-based grammar development environment (NuGram IDE) from which you can upload your grammars to NuGram Server. Regarding the opacity of the site, maybe we could work on that... We are very open to constructive comments! --Dominique (Nu Echo's CTO)
      - schemeway 16y ago
        Here is a blog post on Tropo's blog that explains how to use NuGram Server from Tropo. http://blog.tropo.com/2009/12/17/advanced-grammar-topics-for-tropo/ http://blog.tropo.com/2009/12/17/advanced-grammar-topics-for...
        jsgoecke 16y ago
        Yes, this is a great example of how we focus Tropo on making things easy. But then also let you do the complex things like advanced grammars for speech recognition when you need to. Simplicity mixed with depth of features.
- schemeway 16y ago
  The product you are looking for is Mirador, from Nu Echo: http://www.nuecho.com/mirador http://www.nuecho.com/mirador We don't provide a complete self-service setup process yet We are working on that. Just apply for the free trial and we'll help you bootstrap the whole thing. --Dominique (Nu Echo's CTO)
- _pdeschen 16y ago
  Disclaimer: I'm one of Nu echo's founders and lead architect for our IVR testing and monitoring tool suite (NuBot and Mirador). Our Mirador IVR application monitoring service is exactly what you are looking for. It is one thing to regularly call a given number - which can indeed be hacked quite easily using either Tropo, Asterisk, etc, it is another thing to send daily, weekly, monthly and yearly report to reflect the actual state of the IVR application over time. Call setup time? Greeting time? Transaction failure? Call setup failure? Moreover, you probably want to get an email or SMS notification whenever a defect occurs (otherwise, what's the point of monitoring?) Plus, you probably also happen to want to get a notification for the alarm restore right? While we are at it, I am sure you want those reports available online in a secure location or as a PDF document. You get all this with Mirador! I have received your request this morning through our website and you should have received my reply by now ;-)
  - _pdeschen 16y ago
    For those interested in IVR monitoring services, you should check my recent blog post where I describe what should be in a good monitoring report. What’s in your IVR application monitoring report? http://blog.nuecho.com/2010/12/14/whats-in-your-ivr-application-monitoring-report/ http://blog.nuecho.com/2010/12/14/whats-in-your-ivr-applicat... Enjoy!
- Jakemiles1234 16y ago
  Check out IQ Services out of Minneapolis, Minnesota provides a 100% service model with no hardware or software to purchase or the need to train your employees. This service comes with 24/7 notifications and a online portal where you can listen to all monitoring and notification calls that have been placed. The best thing, this is done remotely like a real customer calling in taking into account outside influences you cannot test from the inside only. 1 to hundreds of calls are placed that exercise the system as many times per hour that is needed, and each call is being checked for and reported back on call quality, availability, times at each step, proper greeting and what the customer feels is important to know. They offer a trial as well if interested. http://www.iq-services.com/heartbeat.asp http://www.iq-services.com/heartbeat.asp
rriepe 16y ago
Every time I ask, "Why don't you use Tropo?" I invariably hear "What's Tropo?" It's a shame, because it is pretty great. I think the word is finally getting out now, though.
- ra 16y ago
  We use Twilio, and I hadn't heard of Tropo. FWIW we're not totally over the moon with Twilio, and I've since discovered freeswitch, which is much more developer friendly and scalable than asterisk. It's all but persuaded me to roll our own telco connectivity.
  - danielle17 16y ago
    If there's anything we can do to make your Twilio experience better, I hope you'll email me, I'm danielle@twilio.com
    - HectorRamos 16y ago
      We've been experimenting with Twilio for the past few months, have some proofs of concepts up and running, but in the end it seems like we will launch with Tropo instead. We're based in Puerto Rico, which even though is technically in the US, we can't get local numbers through Twilio. It also helps that Tropo has TTS in spanish and other languages. Would really love to see Twilio match Tropo in these regards eventually!
      - danielle17 16y ago
        Hey Hector, thanks for this feedback I'll check with the team on the status of Puerto Rico phone numbers. Regarding TTS, you might want to take a closer look at the Twilio <Say> verb, we actually support Spanish TTS... you just have to specify the language and you'll get the right accent, like this: <Response> <Say language="es">Es un robot que hablan español!</Say> </Response> Also have French and Germain. Details here: http://www.twilio.com/docs/api/2010-04-01/twiml/say http://www.twilio.com/docs/api/2010-04-01/twiml/say
garply 16y ago
I have a gripe against Twilio. Aside from their China service sucking, they keep sending me newsletters or emails that are tailored to look like they're personally written to me. The subject looks like "RE: Twilio's Developer Community" and then the text preview in gmail looks something like "Hi Joe, I wanted to drop..." Effective at getting me to open the email, but I always feel deceived when I open it up to see the cookie-cutter mail that they've sent me.
- asanwal 16y ago
  So is the alternative/your expectation that they send each developer a custom email? If Twilio was to do that, that doesn't sound practical, scalable or smart.
  - tomjen3 16y ago
    The alternative is that they don't lie about their content.
    - asanwal 16y ago
      Personalization of this type is pretty common in marketing communications of all types (direct mail, emails, etc). Calling it a lie seems a stretch.
      - monhoppy 16y ago
        I think it's the 'Re:' that feels like a lie, since it's not a reply to a user email.
  - mgkimsal 16y ago
    The alternative would be to not include "RE:" in the subject, which makes it looks like a reply to an earlier thread. The subject is subject enough already. Don't manipulate it with a "RE:" to imply something more. That said, I've been working with Twilio on and off for 2 years and have never received an email like this from them.
nivertech 16y ago
Twilio always seems like a hack to me. Once VoiceXML/CCML was hot market with many startups competing, with biggest exit being Tellme acquired by Microsoft for $800M (same people who founded Zappos). So what's new Twilio can offer here? I have no idea why USV invested in them...
- ra 16y ago
  I kind of agree. Although I think the underlying assumption is that it's an infrastructure as a service play, and so Twilio et al are creating value. Obviously their target market is the web app developer crowd. To do it yourself you need to line up your outbound SIP providers, inbound DID providers (not one and the same once you dig into the details), then you need to operate a bunch of Freeswitch / Asterisk / whatever SIP servers, and learn how to program them, and learn how keep them running smooth (Not particularly difficult, but in terms of learning requirements - it's akin to meeting a database + web server for the first time). Due to the real-time nature of telcos (and I mean that in the traditional clock-synch'd sense of the word) there are additional complications if you want to use a virtualised OS.
  - jdee 16y ago
    I get your point, but feel you are overplaying the difficulty. You can code in plain ol javascript on freeswitch to create complex inbound and outbound comms apps in a couple of hours. Plug it into a sip provider ( i use sipgate ) and there is nothing more complex to it. Far far cheaper too. You dont need a bunch of servers either. If you are doing more than 200 simultaneous calls ( freeswitch easily achieves this on 1 box ) you shouldnt be looking at these entry level systems; Voxeo, Tropo's parent company has an incredibly powerful platform.
    - abhiyerra 16y ago
      Unfortunately, you can't get SMS when you do it yourself using SIP/FreeSwitch. These companies have made the deals with the individual telecom providers to do that for each of their DID numbers.
hopeless 16y ago
My more pragmatic reasons for choosing Tropi over Twilio: 1. having the voice scripts written in Ruby and hosted by Tropo was easier than building a web service to control every mundane aspect 2. Tropo would supply non-U.S. numbers if I needed them 3. Tropo made it easy to do the voice recording and POST it as an MP3 4. Tropo worked out cheaper for my little test service Some or all of these may now have changed but i'd still give Tropo first choice in any future projects
- visionik 16y ago
  Thank you for a great summary of Tropo advantages! -Jonathan (CEO, Voxeo)
  - SriniK 16y ago
    Do you guys consider giving sms bulk discount? Like a tiered pricing?
    - akalsey 16y ago
      We're already priced below the bulk price of most other vendors. What sort of volume do you have? Feel free to drop me an email at akalsey@tropo.com
AlexMuir 16y ago
Absolutely agree that Tropo is better than Twilio. Here are my reasons: 1. Cheaper 2. Multiple voices and accents (UK British Male & Female) 3. Use any number as caller ID. 4. Calls during development are free. 5. Recordings are a breeze 6. Voice recognition from a set of options instead of pressing digits (eg. "Say yes, no or repeat"). On the downside, I've found their system wasn't quite as easy to get going with as Twilio, but it is much more powerful. Twilio have been more visible and active - Tropo seem slightly behind in evangelism and generally pimping their product.
- sachinag 16y ago
  Twilio have been more visible and active - Tropo seem slightly behind in evangelism and generally pimping their product. 1) I wouldn't say "slightly". 2) Twilio's great at it because Danielle was employee #1 at Twilio. Marketing and evangelism are in Twilio's DNA.
  - visionik 16y ago
    Absolutely agree. Twilio is great at marketing and evangelism. Twilio is way ahead on that front. That's their DNA. Voxeo is great at feature innovation and platform implementation. Voxeo is way ahead on that front. That's Voxeo's DNA.
- danielle17 16y ago
  Hey Alex, not sure if you've logged into your Twilio account lately, but we reduced prices a couple months back so inbound calls are now $0.01/min, SMS is $0.02/msg, and phone numbers are $1/domestic or $2/toll free. We've yet to see someone actually blow through the whole $30 in trial credit, but if you run out and need more just let us know at help@twilio.com Also not sure if you've seen this, but you can pick from English, French, German, and Spanish accents here: http://www.twilio.com/say http://www.twilio.com/say
- adityakothadiya 16y ago
  I'm not sure why you're saying it's cheaper. As Danielle mentioned, the prices are actually very less. And as a developer, every penny difference counts. Also they give $30 credit, which is more than enough to "try and play" and release your app to production. I agree with point "3" though. I use Twilio for an app which sends voice call reminders to other people. But when automatic reminder call goes to these people, it goes from a 1-877 number and many people don't pick up the phone thinking that it's a spam number. Instead if I could call from the number of an original user who sets the reminder, that would be really great. Point "6" also seem to be great, and I'm sure Twilio will add that. But somehow, the article coming from Tropo's evangelist is not strong enough or convincing to make a switch from Twilio to Tropo. In fact you did a good job in highlighting some of the technical differences. I think the post lacks these kinds of specifics.
blitzo 16y ago
"Twilio would never be able to keep up with Tropo on features" -Danielle Morrill, Twilio head marketing edit: to downvoter, i just wanna hear from danielle himself about this qoute, no harm mean
- akalsey 16y ago
  Danielle said this during the API panel moderated by Thomas Howe at ITExpo West in October this year. When asked of the differences, she said that Twilio was focused on growing the market and making it easy for web devs instead of trying to keep up with Tropo on features. Many itexpo sessions are recorded. There may be audio or video of this somewhere.
  - danielle17 16y ago
    That is very different from saying we'd never be able to keep up on features.
    - akalsey 16y ago
      It's stretched? That is very different from saying, as you did above, that "This quote is completely fabricated." (it also wasn't a quote). I'm not trying to start a flame war here. I like you (and the rest of Twilio) quite a bit. I admired what you said and the goal it represented: Focus on and attack a different market from a different angle than we are. Build on your strengths and acknowledge your weaknesses. I wish more companies would do that. No company can be good at everything. You did say something very similar to what Diggz referenced (not "quoted"). Then you accused him of outright lying. That's just not cool at all.
      - danielle17 16y ago
        I don't know how saying "Danielle Morrill said" is not a quote. But let the audience here, and the future, judge whether or not we "keep up". I think time will tell.
- danielle17 16y ago
runT1ME 16y ago
Twilio uses Asterisk? Is this true? If so my respect for both their technical chops and pain tolerance went up...
- stanleydrew 16y ago
  This is absolutely true. I think Tropo does as well.
  - akalsey 16y ago
    No, Tropo uses Prism, Voxeo's enterprise grade SIP application server: http://www.voxeo.com/prism/ http://www.voxeo.com/prism/. Tropo's application layer is also open source and will run on any SIP servelet server.
    - runT1ME 16y ago
      Is 'enterprise grade' referring to a specific technical claim made by Voxeo or more of just a substitute for 'often used in the enterprise'?
      - visionik 16y ago
        Thank you for asking. "Enterprise grade" can be a vague marketing term. This is what Voxeo means when we say PRISM is "enterprise grade": 1. Fault tolerant: Including the ability to do state-full failover of applications from one PRISM server instance to another. 2. Scalable: Proven ability to scale to over 25,000 calls per server. 3. High performance: Proven ability to scale to over 800 call setups (new calls) per second per server. 4. Standards-based: PRISM implements the Java SIP servlet standards (JSR-289) and Java Media Control standard (JSR-309). PRISM applications can run unmodified on similar platforms from Oracle, IBM, and Redhat - and vice versa. 5. Support: PRISM is backed by a company with guaranteed 24x7 support, under 20 minute response times, over 150 employees, world-wide offices, financial stability, and 10 years of experience. On top of that, yes, PRISM is often used in the enterprise and by service providers. :) PRISM is also used for everything we do at Voxeo. All of our products and services, including Tropo, are built on top of PRISM.
prakster 16y ago
Has anyone compared Tropo and Twilio in these 3 areas: (a) Speed of SMS deliverability (# of SMS that can be delivered per minute) (b) Confirmation of SMS (i.e. can we be sure that the SMS was indeed delivered) (c) Availability of phone numbers in different area codes
- akalsey 16y ago
  SMS delivery from regular phone numbers is rate limited by the carriers. Tropo throttles you to 10 messages per minute to keep inside carrier guidelines. From a shortcode, there's no limit. And Tropo's connected directly to the SMS carriers, so you can deliver at a significant rate. We don't provide delivery confirmation of SMS today. That's coming soon however. One thing to keep in mind, though, is that delivery can only be confirmed to the carrier. Handset delivery receipts are flaky at best. Not all handsets support sending delivery receipts, those that do often allow the user to disable it, and some carriers will block the receipt. We have phone numbers in about 280 area codes and 41 countries. Not all of the area codes are available in the UI yet, so if you need one and don't see it, send an email to support and we'll hook you up.
nutanc 16y ago
I think the comments are becoming a little personal in this post. Thats in one way good as that shows there is a developer attachment(fanboyism :)) to both the platforms.But the fact of the matter is that both Twilio and Tropo are trying to solve the same problem along with many other web to telephone companies.Also,I think Teleku, acquired by Voxeo takes a Twilio kind of approach. Just to summarize the facts, and in general there is a consensus here: 1.Twilio is easier to get started 2.Tropo has more features 3.Both end up costing around the same. So I would say, as a developer, just try both the platforms or atleast read through the features and make an informed decision about which platform to go with for your customers as ultimately they are the ones we are trying to service.
johns 16y ago
I work at Twilio and I wanted to clear up a couple misconceptions here for the record. I didn't know who the author was prior to this post but from his about page he's the co-founder of Voxeo so this post is hardly impartial. He can write whatever he wants on his blog obviously, but keep that in mind. Comments on the site were also moderated preventing responses from some people. It is not true that we only work with one carrier. We work with a variety of carriers to maximize our capabilities, geographic reach and redundancy. Twilio works with most of the same carriers as Google Voice. In regards to prank calling, every phone service is used for pranks, Tropo included. In our case, it's a byproduct of making it easy for any web developer to get started in minutes. However, we've put in place safeguards (most notably validating outgoing caller IDs before they can be used) to minimize these types of activities. We pride ourselves on support. We monitor Twitter constantly, we have people in IRC all the time (set office hours is just a focused discussion topic), and we try to respond to emails and forum posts as fast as possible. We have a team of people scouring Stack Overflow, Hacker News and events all over the country helping developers with their questions, related to Twilio OR NOT. Go find any blog post written about Twilio and see how quickly we responded. We answer the phones when you call, though we have some area to improve in that regard. We're actively working on it. We support developers like nobody else. We feature them on our site in our Gallery http://www.twilio.com/gallery http://www.twilio.com/gallery, we tweet about them, we blog regularly about what our customers build, we have a weekly developer contest to reward cool new apps and we generally go to great lengths to help promote what developers and startups are building using Twilio. We exist to empower you. We'd much rather talk about the cool problems real working developers solving then toot our own horn. Everyone here knows how good EC2 is, I don't think I need to defend that issue. It's working wonderfully for us. We don't have any capacity or other issues related to our infrastructure. On a more general capacity note, we have yet to hit a limit of what we can handle, and we've worked on some huge projects. Go look at our customer list. These companies would not work with us if we couldn't handle their demands: http://www.twilio.com/gallery/customers http://www.twilio.com/gallery/customers These are just scratching the surface. There's another class of customer that's even bigger but doesn't like being talked about publicly. We're hyper-focused on web developers. We (I'm a web dev myself) don't care about complicated telephony issues. We're too busy solving problems. Twilio works the way we work. Before I worked at Twilio I struggled trying to implement features that took me minutes once I discovered the Twilio API. It already spoke what I knew already and that's just simply HTTP. We are not the right solution for every single developer; nothing is. But we have a rock solid solution that's working for over 20,000 developers and growing rapidly. If you're conflicted, try both services out for yourself. Don't listen to either company, just see for yourself which you like better. And if we can help in any way, we're listening. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to email me directly at jsheehan@twilio.com

110 points by blitzo 16y ago

ericb 16y ago

I was looking at creating an IVR monitoring tool. I would like to 1-make a call every hour, 2-record the response, and ideally 3-verify the response matches the expected. Thoughts? It looks like twilio and tropi might be able to do this (although I wasn't sure they weren't more focused on inbound), but the 1 cent price is prohibitive for what people might pay per-month especially at higher monitoring frequencies. Anyone have other solutions that are reasonably simple? edit: If I did run adhearsion/asterisk, what do I just have to connect it to a phone line? Vague on the setup needed to do this...

akalsey 16y ago
NuGram makes a product designed for just that. You could certainly build something yourself using either a hosted service like Tropo or using Asterisk, but using something purpose built may work better. We use NuGram to test things. If you run an asterisk server the easiest way to get it hooked up to the phone network is by setting up a SIP account for it.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- ericb 16y ago
  Thanks for the recommendations! How is the pricing on NuGram? Is this it? http://www.grammarserver.com/welcome http://www.grammarserver.com/welcome I'm finding their descriptions a bit opaque. Do you remember the product name off hand? Do they host it, or do I need to look into learning what an SIP is? :-)
  - akalsey 16y ago
    Grammar Server is a product they make for building and managing speech recognition grammars. It's pretty awesome, too, and any recognition grammars you create can be used with Tropo. NuBot is the IVR testing product http://www.nuecho.com/content/view/28/147 http://www.nuecho.com/content/view/28/147 I'm not sure of the cloud per minute pricing, but they'll likely be pretty responsive on email. They're a good group of people.
    - _pdeschen 16y ago
      Disclaimer: I'm one of Nu echo's founders and lead architect for our IVR testing and monitoring tool suite (NuBot and Mirador). Thanks Adam, That is surely yet another point in favor of Tropo. They test. Using our NuBot Platform, we have load test their infrastructure with several concurrent calls. A few issues came up and Voxeo promptly fixed the issues. Case closed. Tremendous support. I don't know about Twilio in such regard. A few months back, I have offered Twilio our load testing services but I haven't heard of them so far. Danielle, Jeff, if you read this, drop me a note (pdeschen @ nuecho dot com) and we'll be pleased to load test your infra! :-) Pascal
  - schemeway 16y ago
    NuGram (www.grammarserver.com) is a hosted platform used to host and share speech recognition grammars (both static and dynamic, i.e. grammar templates) for use by hosted IVR platforms (Tropo, Voxeo Prophecy, etc.) It's totally free, although it's not really meant for production use as of now. If you need it in production, please contact me at dominique DOT boucher AT nuecho DOT com. From it's companion site, nugram.nuecho.com, you can also download a complete Eclipse-based grammar development environment (NuGram IDE) from which you can upload your grammars to NuGram Server. Regarding the opacity of the site, maybe we could work on that... We are very open to constructive comments! --Dominique (Nu Echo's CTO)
    - schemeway 16y ago
      Here is a blog post on Tropo's blog that explains how to use NuGram Server from Tropo. http://blog.tropo.com/2009/12/17/advanced-grammar-topics-for-tropo/ http://blog.tropo.com/2009/12/17/advanced-grammar-topics-for...
      - jsgoecke 16y ago
        Yes, this is a great example of how we focus Tropo on making things easy. But then also let you do the complex things like advanced grammars for speech recognition when you need to. Simplicity mixed with depth of features.
schemeway 16y ago
The product you are looking for is Mirador, from Nu Echo: http://www.nuecho.com/mirador http://www.nuecho.com/mirador We don't provide a complete self-service setup process yet We are working on that. Just apply for the free trial and we'll help you bootstrap the whole thing. --Dominique (Nu Echo's CTO)
_pdeschen 16y ago
Disclaimer: I'm one of Nu echo's founders and lead architect for our IVR testing and monitoring tool suite (NuBot and Mirador). Our Mirador IVR application monitoring service is exactly what you are looking for. It is one thing to regularly call a given number - which can indeed be hacked quite easily using either Tropo, Asterisk, etc, it is another thing to send daily, weekly, monthly and yearly report to reflect the actual state of the IVR application over time. Call setup time? Greeting time? Transaction failure? Call setup failure? Moreover, you probably want to get an email or SMS notification whenever a defect occurs (otherwise, what's the point of monitoring?) Plus, you probably also happen to want to get a notification for the alarm restore right? While we are at it, I am sure you want those reports available online in a secure location or as a PDF document. You get all this with Mirador! I have received your request this morning through our website and you should have received my reply by now ;-)
- _pdeschen 16y ago
  For those interested in IVR monitoring services, you should check my recent blog post where I describe what should be in a good monitoring report. What’s in your IVR application monitoring report? http://blog.nuecho.com/2010/12/14/whats-in-your-ivr-application-monitoring-report/ http://blog.nuecho.com/2010/12/14/whats-in-your-ivr-applicat... Enjoy!
Jakemiles1234 16y ago
Check out IQ Services out of Minneapolis, Minnesota provides a 100% service model with no hardware or software to purchase or the need to train your employees. This service comes with 24/7 notifications and a online portal where you can listen to all monitoring and notification calls that have been placed. The best thing, this is done remotely like a real customer calling in taking into account outside influences you cannot test from the inside only. 1 to hundreds of calls are placed that exercise the system as many times per hour that is needed, and each call is being checked for and reported back on call quality, availability, times at each step, proper greeting and what the customer feels is important to know. They offer a trial as well if interested. http://www.iq-services.com/heartbeat.asp http://www.iq-services.com/heartbeat.asp

rriepe 16y ago

Every time I ask, "Why don't you use Tropo?" I invariably hear "What's Tropo?" It's a shame, because it is pretty great. I think the word is finally getting out now, though.

ra 16y ago
We use Twilio, and I hadn't heard of Tropo. FWIW we're not totally over the moon with Twilio, and I've since discovered freeswitch, which is much more developer friendly and scalable than asterisk. It's all but persuaded me to roll our own telco connectivity.
- danielle17 16y ago
  If there's anything we can do to make your Twilio experience better, I hope you'll email me, I'm danielle@twilio.com
  - HectorRamos 16y ago
    We've been experimenting with Twilio for the past few months, have some proofs of concepts up and running, but in the end it seems like we will launch with Tropo instead. We're based in Puerto Rico, which even though is technically in the US, we can't get local numbers through Twilio. It also helps that Tropo has TTS in spanish and other languages. Would really love to see Twilio match Tropo in these regards eventually!
    - danielle17 16y ago
      Hey Hector, thanks for this feedback I'll check with the team on the status of Puerto Rico phone numbers. Regarding TTS, you might want to take a closer look at the Twilio <Say> verb, we actually support Spanish TTS... you just have to specify the language and you'll get the right accent, like this: <Response> <Say language="es">Es un robot que hablan español!</Say> </Response> Also have French and Germain. Details here: http://www.twilio.com/docs/api/2010-04-01/twiml/say http://www.twilio.com/docs/api/2010-04-01/twiml/say

garply 16y ago

I have a gripe against Twilio. Aside from their China service sucking, they keep sending me newsletters or emails that are tailored to look like they're personally written to me. The subject looks like "RE: Twilio's Developer Community" and then the text preview in gmail looks something like "Hi Joe, I wanted to drop..." Effective at getting me to open the email, but I always feel deceived when I open it up to see the cookie-cutter mail that they've sent me.

asanwal 16y ago
So is the alternative/your expectation that they send each developer a custom email? If Twilio was to do that, that doesn't sound practical, scalable or smart.
- tomjen3 16y ago
  The alternative is that they don't lie about their content.
  - asanwal 16y ago
    Personalization of this type is pretty common in marketing communications of all types (direct mail, emails, etc). Calling it a lie seems a stretch.
    - monhoppy 16y ago
      I think it's the 'Re:' that feels like a lie, since it's not a reply to a user email.
- mgkimsal 16y ago
  The alternative would be to not include "RE:" in the subject, which makes it looks like a reply to an earlier thread. The subject is subject enough already. Don't manipulate it with a "RE:" to imply something more. That said, I've been working with Twilio on and off for 2 years and have never received an email like this from them.

nivertech 16y ago

Twilio always seems like a hack to me. Once VoiceXML/CCML was hot market with many startups competing, with biggest exit being Tellme acquired by Microsoft for $800M (same people who founded Zappos). So what's new Twilio can offer here? I have no idea why USV invested in them...

ra 16y ago
I kind of agree. Although I think the underlying assumption is that it's an infrastructure as a service play, and so Twilio et al are creating value. Obviously their target market is the web app developer crowd. To do it yourself you need to line up your outbound SIP providers, inbound DID providers (not one and the same once you dig into the details), then you need to operate a bunch of Freeswitch / Asterisk / whatever SIP servers, and learn how to program them, and learn how keep them running smooth (Not particularly difficult, but in terms of learning requirements - it's akin to meeting a database + web server for the first time). Due to the real-time nature of telcos (and I mean that in the traditional clock-synch'd sense of the word) there are additional complications if you want to use a virtualised OS.
- jdee 16y ago
  I get your point, but feel you are overplaying the difficulty. You can code in plain ol javascript on freeswitch to create complex inbound and outbound comms apps in a couple of hours. Plug it into a sip provider ( i use sipgate ) and there is nothing more complex to it. Far far cheaper too. You dont need a bunch of servers either. If you are doing more than 200 simultaneous calls ( freeswitch easily achieves this on 1 box ) you shouldnt be looking at these entry level systems; Voxeo, Tropo's parent company has an incredibly powerful platform.
  - abhiyerra 16y ago
    Unfortunately, you can't get SMS when you do it yourself using SIP/FreeSwitch. These companies have made the deals with the individual telecom providers to do that for each of their DID numbers.

hopeless 16y ago

My more pragmatic reasons for choosing Tropi over Twilio: 1. having the voice scripts written in Ruby and hosted by Tropo was easier than building a web service to control every mundane aspect 2. Tropo would supply non-U.S. numbers if I needed them 3. Tropo made it easy to do the voice recording and POST it as an MP3 4. Tropo worked out cheaper for my little test service Some or all of these may now have changed but i'd still give Tropo first choice in any future projects

visionik 16y ago
Thank you for a great summary of Tropo advantages! -Jonathan (CEO, Voxeo)
- SriniK 16y ago
  Do you guys consider giving sms bulk discount? Like a tiered pricing?
  - akalsey 16y ago
    We're already priced below the bulk price of most other vendors. What sort of volume do you have? Feel free to drop me an email at akalsey@tropo.com

AlexMuir 16y ago

Absolutely agree that Tropo is better than Twilio. Here are my reasons: 1. Cheaper 2. Multiple voices and accents (UK British Male & Female) 3. Use any number as caller ID. 4. Calls during development are free. 5. Recordings are a breeze 6. Voice recognition from a set of options instead of pressing digits (eg. "Say yes, no or repeat"). On the downside, I've found their system wasn't quite as easy to get going with as Twilio, but it is much more powerful. Twilio have been more visible and active - Tropo seem slightly behind in evangelism and generally pimping their product.

sachinag 16y ago
Twilio have been more visible and active - Tropo seem slightly behind in evangelism and generally pimping their product. 1) I wouldn't say "slightly". 2) Twilio's great at it because Danielle was employee #1 at Twilio. Marketing and evangelism are in Twilio's DNA.
- visionik 16y ago
  Absolutely agree. Twilio is great at marketing and evangelism. Twilio is way ahead on that front. That's their DNA. Voxeo is great at feature innovation and platform implementation. Voxeo is way ahead on that front. That's Voxeo's DNA.
danielle17 16y ago
Hey Alex, not sure if you've logged into your Twilio account lately, but we reduced prices a couple months back so inbound calls are now $0.01/min, SMS is $0.02/msg, and phone numbers are $1/domestic or $2/toll free. We've yet to see someone actually blow through the whole $30 in trial credit, but if you run out and need more just let us know at help@twilio.com Also not sure if you've seen this, but you can pick from English, French, German, and Spanish accents here: http://www.twilio.com/say http://www.twilio.com/say
adityakothadiya 16y ago
I'm not sure why you're saying it's cheaper. As Danielle mentioned, the prices are actually very less. And as a developer, every penny difference counts. Also they give $30 credit, which is more than enough to "try and play" and release your app to production. I agree with point "3" though. I use Twilio for an app which sends voice call reminders to other people. But when automatic reminder call goes to these people, it goes from a 1-877 number and many people don't pick up the phone thinking that it's a spam number. Instead if I could call from the number of an original user who sets the reminder, that would be really great. Point "6" also seem to be great, and I'm sure Twilio will add that. But somehow, the article coming from Tropo's evangelist is not strong enough or convincing to make a switch from Twilio to Tropo. In fact you did a good job in highlighting some of the technical differences. I think the post lacks these kinds of specifics.

blitzo 16y ago

"Twilio would never be able to keep up with Tropo on features" -Danielle Morrill, Twilio head marketing edit: to downvoter, i just wanna hear from danielle himself about this qoute, no harm mean

akalsey 16y ago
Danielle said this during the API panel moderated by Thomas Howe at ITExpo West in October this year. When asked of the differences, she said that Twilio was focused on growing the market and making it easy for web devs instead of trying to keep up with Tropo on features. Many itexpo sessions are recorded. There may be audio or video of this somewhere.
- danielle17 16y ago
  That is very different from saying we'd never be able to keep up on features.
  - akalsey 16y ago
    It's stretched? That is very different from saying, as you did above, that "This quote is completely fabricated." (it also wasn't a quote). I'm not trying to start a flame war here. I like you (and the rest of Twilio) quite a bit. I admired what you said and the goal it represented: Focus on and attack a different market from a different angle than we are. Build on your strengths and acknowledge your weaknesses. I wish more companies would do that. No company can be good at everything. You did say something very similar to what Diggz referenced (not "quoted"). Then you accused him of outright lying. That's just not cool at all.
    - danielle17 16y ago
      I don't know how saying "Danielle Morrill said" is not a quote. But let the audience here, and the future, judge whether or not we "keep up". I think time will tell.
danielle17 16y ago

runT1ME 16y ago

Twilio uses Asterisk? Is this true? If so my respect for both their technical chops and pain tolerance went up...

stanleydrew 16y ago
This is absolutely true. I think Tropo does as well.
- akalsey 16y ago
  No, Tropo uses Prism, Voxeo's enterprise grade SIP application server: http://www.voxeo.com/prism/ http://www.voxeo.com/prism/. Tropo's application layer is also open source and will run on any SIP servelet server.
  - runT1ME 16y ago
    Is 'enterprise grade' referring to a specific technical claim made by Voxeo or more of just a substitute for 'often used in the enterprise'?
    - visionik 16y ago
      Thank you for asking. "Enterprise grade" can be a vague marketing term. This is what Voxeo means when we say PRISM is "enterprise grade": 1. Fault tolerant: Including the ability to do state-full failover of applications from one PRISM server instance to another. 2. Scalable: Proven ability to scale to over 25,000 calls per server. 3. High performance: Proven ability to scale to over 800 call setups (new calls) per second per server. 4. Standards-based: PRISM implements the Java SIP servlet standards (JSR-289) and Java Media Control standard (JSR-309). PRISM applications can run unmodified on similar platforms from Oracle, IBM, and Redhat - and vice versa. 5. Support: PRISM is backed by a company with guaranteed 24x7 support, under 20 minute response times, over 150 employees, world-wide offices, financial stability, and 10 years of experience. On top of that, yes, PRISM is often used in the enterprise and by service providers. :) PRISM is also used for everything we do at Voxeo. All of our products and services, including Tropo, are built on top of PRISM.

prakster 16y ago

Has anyone compared Tropo and Twilio in these 3 areas: (a) Speed of SMS deliverability (# of SMS that can be delivered per minute) (b) Confirmation of SMS (i.e. can we be sure that the SMS was indeed delivered) (c) Availability of phone numbers in different area codes

akalsey 16y ago
SMS delivery from regular phone numbers is rate limited by the carriers. Tropo throttles you to 10 messages per minute to keep inside carrier guidelines. From a shortcode, there's no limit. And Tropo's connected directly to the SMS carriers, so you can deliver at a significant rate. We don't provide delivery confirmation of SMS today. That's coming soon however. One thing to keep in mind, though, is that delivery can only be confirmed to the carrier. Handset delivery receipts are flaky at best. Not all handsets support sending delivery receipts, those that do often allow the user to disable it, and some carriers will block the receipt. We have phone numbers in about 280 area codes and 41 countries. Not all of the area codes are available in the UI yet, so if you need one and don't see it, send an email to support and we'll hook you up.

nutanc 16y ago

I think the comments are becoming a little personal in this post. Thats in one way good as that shows there is a developer attachment(fanboyism :)) to both the platforms.But the fact of the matter is that both Twilio and Tropo are trying to solve the same problem along with many other web to telephone companies.Also,I think Teleku, acquired by Voxeo takes a Twilio kind of approach. Just to summarize the facts, and in general there is a consensus here: 1.Twilio is easier to get started 2.Tropo has more features 3.Both end up costing around the same. So I would say, as a developer, just try both the platforms or atleast read through the features and make an informed decision about which platform to go with for your customers as ultimately they are the ones we are trying to service.

johns 16y ago

I work at Twilio and I wanted to clear up a couple misconceptions here for the record. I didn't know who the author was prior to this post but from his about page he's the co-founder of Voxeo so this post is hardly impartial. He can write whatever he wants on his blog obviously, but keep that in mind. Comments on the site were also moderated preventing responses from some people. It is not true that we only work with one carrier. We work with a variety of carriers to maximize our capabilities, geographic reach and redundancy. Twilio works with most of the same carriers as Google Voice. In regards to prank calling, every phone service is used for pranks, Tropo included. In our case, it's a byproduct of making it easy for any web developer to get started in minutes. However, we've put in place safeguards (most notably validating outgoing caller IDs before they can be used) to minimize these types of activities. We pride ourselves on support. We monitor Twitter constantly, we have people in IRC all the time (set office hours is just a focused discussion topic), and we try to respond to emails and forum posts as fast as possible. We have a team of people scouring Stack Overflow, Hacker News and events all over the country helping developers with their questions, related to Twilio OR NOT. Go find any blog post written about Twilio and see how quickly we responded. We answer the phones when you call, though we have some area to improve in that regard. We're actively working on it. We support developers like nobody else. We feature them on our site in our Gallery http://www.twilio.com/gallery http://www.twilio.com/gallery, we tweet about them, we blog regularly about what our customers build, we have a weekly developer contest to reward cool new apps and we generally go to great lengths to help promote what developers and startups are building using Twilio. We exist to empower you. We'd much rather talk about the cool problems real working developers solving then toot our own horn. Everyone here knows how good EC2 is, I don't think I need to defend that issue. It's working wonderfully for us. We don't have any capacity or other issues related to our infrastructure. On a more general capacity note, we have yet to hit a limit of what we can handle, and we've worked on some huge projects. Go look at our customer list. These companies would not work with us if we couldn't handle their demands: http://www.twilio.com/gallery/customers http://www.twilio.com/gallery/customers These are just scratching the surface. There's another class of customer that's even bigger but doesn't like being talked about publicly. We're hyper-focused on web developers. We (I'm a web dev myself) don't care about complicated telephony issues. We're too busy solving problems. Twilio works the way we work. Before I worked at Twilio I struggled trying to implement features that took me minutes once I discovered the Twilio API. It already spoke what I knew already and that's just simply HTTP. We are not the right solution for every single developer; nothing is. But we have a rock solid solution that's working for over 20,000 developers and growing rapidly. If you're conflicted, try both services out for yourself. Don't listen to either company, just see for yourself which you like better. And if we can help in any way, we're listening. If you have any questions or concerns, feel free to email me directly at jsheehan@twilio.com