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Twilio vs 3CX

Last Updated: November 18th, 2024

Our analysts compared Twilio vs 3CX based on data from our 400+ point analysis of Business Phone Systems, user reviews and our own crowdsourced data from our free software selection platform.

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Product Basics

Twilio is a cloud communication platform as a service provider that enables businesses to embed phone, VoIP and messaging into web, desktop and mobile applications through web service APIs. Developers can design more efficient self-service call flows and trigger custom business processes through its low-code builder, Studio. Teams can make and receive phone calls, send and receive text messages and communicate in other ways. Developers can build new apps with a wide range of existing global cellular networks and enhance audio conferencing infrastructure through its Voice API. It helps augment existing contact centers with voice, SMS, IVR and a chatbot and integrates with Whatsapp, Facebook Messenger and Webchat.

Omnichannel customer service ensures sustained engagement through click-to-dial, automated text notifications, intelligent routing and callback service during peak hours. It blocks unlawful robocalls and ensures increased call answer rates through call trust indicators. It empowers businesses to create video apps and embed videos through dedicated SDKs for Android, iOS and JavaScript.

A global leader in business communications, 3CX is a phone system based on the SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) standard. Suitable for any business size, this solution helps improve productivity, enhance customer experience and enable increased mobility. It’s simple, cost-effective, flexible and can be hosted on a remote server.

The platform enables simultaneous calling, allowing customers to pay only for what they require. It offers extensive functionality, reliability and security. Integrating this software with other systems is easy and straightforward.

$150/User, Monthly, Usage-Based

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$15/User, Monthly

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Product Insights

Global Reach: Twilio enables businesses to connect with customers worldwide through voice, messaging, and video, breaking down geographical barriers and expanding market presence.
Scalability: As your business grows, Twilio effortlessly scales with you, ensuring that your communication capabilities can expand to meet increasing demand without the need for significant infrastructure investments.
Flexibility: With its API-first approach, Twilio offers unparalleled flexibility, allowing businesses to customize and integrate communication features into their existing workflows and systems seamlessly.
Cost Efficiency: By leveraging cloud communications, Twilio reduces the need for expensive hardware and maintenance costs associated with traditional communication systems, providing a cost-effective solution for businesses of all sizes.
Enhanced Customer Experience: Twilio's advanced features, such as automated SMS notifications and personalized voice responses, enable businesses to offer a more engaging and responsive customer service experience.
Reliability: Twilio's robust infrastructure ensures high availability and reliability, minimizing downtime and ensuring that businesses can maintain communication with their customers around the clock.
Security: With a strong commitment to security, Twilio provides features like end-to-end encryption and compliance with industry standards, ensuring that sensitive communication data is protected.
Real-Time Analytics: Twilio offers detailed analytics and reporting tools, giving businesses valuable insights into their communication performance and customer interactions, enabling data-driven decision-making.
Multi-Channel Support: Twilio supports a wide range of communication channels, including SMS, MMS, voice, video, and email, allowing businesses to reach customers on their preferred platforms.
Developer Friendly: With comprehensive documentation, SDKs, and support resources, Twilio is designed to be developer-friendly, reducing the learning curve and accelerating the development of custom communication solutions.
Innovation: Twilio is at the forefront of communication technology, regularly introducing new features and capabilities that enable businesses to stay ahead of the curve and leverage the latest advancements in communication tech.
Integration Ecosystem: Twilio integrates with a wide array of third-party applications and services, enhancing its functionality and allowing businesses to create a seamless ecosystem of tools tailored to their needs.

Cost Effective: Decrease hardware, administration and maintenance costs. Pay lower costs for making calls to offices set up in other countries.
Unified Communication: Use additional features such as CRM, live chat, messaging and video conferencing. Access them all conveniently at one place.
Easy To Use: Eliminate training hassles and start using the software immediately without any learning curves.
Better Mobility: Allow employees to use extensions irrespective of location. Secure increased mobility by letting them carry the extensions wherever they go. Easily add and manage new lines.

Phone Numbers: Use APIs to monitor a number’s entire lifecycle. Facilitate global innovation to ensure that all number-based apps are secure from disruption. Get a hold of numbers that have undergone intensive testing. Port your existing numbers through an online application or email. Choose from over 65,000 phone numbers from the inventory and pick from a range of phone number types.
Elastic SIP Trunking: Get PSTN connectivity for any SIP device in a network. Automatically scale up or down with unlimited capacity. Add innovative cloud communication features, including voice insights, Twilio Interconnect and call control. Simplify the network, don’t pay any channel or port fees and ensure optimized security. Make use of disaster recovery features to safeguard the service.
Short Code: Increase reachability with shortcodes available in the U.S., Canada and the U.K., and long code numbers available in over 100 countries. Enable throughput at 100 messages per second. Reroute to standard long-code phone numbers in the U.S. if a carrier is unable to receive messages from short codes. Access automatic picture transcoding, character encoding and message assembly, ensuring message delivery without custom code.
Email Marketing: Import and sync large contact lists within minutes. Use the powerful segmentation engine to manage and send emails to any number of people. Choose a design flow using the drag-and-drop option or the code editor. Easily schedule a one-time email or set up an automated email series.
Account Security: Eliminate fake account creation, secure new users and reduce fraud. Deliver detailed carrier and caller information using Lookup. Make informed decisions regarding who can contact and who cannot. Secure business and a large volume of customers with Authy, enabling two-factor authentication to the log-in via TOTP, push and SMS.
Enhanced Emailing: Deliver all emails without interruptions with the propriety MTA (mail transfer agent), intuitive console, email experts and more. Activate automated email queue handling and throttle risk detection. Use sender authentication, SPF (Sender Policy Framework), DKIM (Domain Keys), reverse DNS (Domain Name System) and dedicated IP addresses to improve deliverability and reliability.
Improved Video Experience: Integrate videos directly into the app to enjoy a customized experience. Design a layout or choose one from the pre-configured options. Monitor participant network quality with Network Quality API. Create engaging whiteboards, animation and more with DataTracks. Allow screen-sharing to improve collaboration. Add live chat and support phone dial-in when the internet is unavailable.
Voice API: Quickly scale and modify a voice experience and add a wide array of customizations and resources. Add features such as Interactive Voice Response (IVR), recording transcriptions and speech recognition. Enable reliable, high-quality connections supported by the Twilio Super Network. Place quality calls by facilitating access to global carriers, infinite scaling and private links to the cloud.
Messaging API: Engage customers across the globe with 1,500 redundant partner carrier connections, phone numbers in over 100 countries and more than 200 types of numbers. Support channels such as SMS, MMS, OTT, email and more. Use intelligent sender selection for consistent, localized and compliant messaging. Message worldwide using over 200 phone number types, including shortcodes, alphanumeric and toll-free numbers. Use message insights to check status callbacks and real-time analytics.
Applications:
- Flex: Enable digital-first engagement with a broad span of communication channels managed through one platform. Continuously inspect, adapt and adjust any part of the contact center. Facilitate personalized interactions with customers by providing agents access to contextual information.
- Frontline: Assist clients and forge relationships despite geographical location. Provide support on any channel, including SMS, MMS, WhatsApp and chat. Transfer conversations between channels and employees and direct inquiries to the next employee. Manage privacy and compliance with SSO authentication and number anonymization. Use native push and badge notifications, ensuring employees never miss any alerts. Send and receive media and messages across channels using a single app.
- Segment: Unify data and enhance engagements by reaching out to the customers with the right message and using the right channel. Build personalized engagements by creating a single, holistic view of the customer journey rather than wasting endless hours on data. Collect user data from every interaction and combine it from various sources to better understand each customer. Catch quality data issues at the start and fix them automatically. Get rid of old, incomplete and inaccurate data.

Hosted PBX: Keep better control over everything. Manage updates and get maximum flexibility. Move virtual PBX to a private cloud when required. Access integrated video conferencing solutions, apps for mobile phone devices, website live chat and much more. Automatically configure firewall rules. Launch the software in a few minutes using PBX Express. Get unlimited extensions. Manage extensions for remote workers seamlessly.
Phone System: Use the open-platform system with an option to migrate to the cloud. Deploy it on an existing server and reduce costs. Allow employees to have an excellent remote-working experience and increase overall productivity. Access flexible inbound calls, outbound calls, DIDs and ring groups.
Mobile Apps: Access secured communication for the entire team. Don’t restrict communication to building premises. Work on the go using the available extensions. Ensure customer satisfaction even while working remotely. Check the team’s availability easily. Eliminate learning curves and commence working quickly. Facilitate cost-effective phone calls between employees and colleagues. Transfer clients quickly to the appropriate department. Use the app and desk phone simultaneously.
CRM Integration: Keep the entire customer record handy to help the clients more efficiently and create a good impression in front of them. Create new customer records. Make calls in one click. Route calls seamlessly based on customer numbers or customer questions. Initiate and journal a call simultaneously.
Video Conferencing: Access easy-to-use and free enterprise-level video conferencing. Invite participants in a single click. Join meetings directly from the web browser without downloading any app. Share documents, present using a whiteboard, control remote screens and more. Add up to 250 participants. Schedule meetings within seconds.
Webphone: Handle all calls, check availability of team members and initiate video calls using one location. Make and receive calls straight from the web browser. Log in from anywhere using the required credentials and make a call with one click. Access voicemail, initiate video calls and get call notifications.
Call Center: Eliminate complex tasks and allow your agents to get more time to focus on vital work. Use the callback option and ensure no customer calls get missed. Record calls for reference purposes and access them whenever required. Centrally monitor ticket responses.
Live Chat: Integrate live chat with the phone system and allow website visitors to initiate real-time chats with the agents. Initiate a video call or live call without even dialing numbers. Manage all the communication on a single platform. Customize chat greetings keeping business hours and holidays in mind.
Microsoft 365: Connect with Microsoft 365 easily and streamline the workflow. Initiate calls directly from the interface. Automate phone contacts syncing. Use SSO authentication login using one click. Catch any important messages or calls. Create new extensions automatically.
Facebook Messages: Connect easily with customers. Eliminate the need to give all agents access to the Facebook page. Allow agents to respond to customers and resolve queries quickly. Track and archive Facebook messages successfully. Enable live chat messaging.
Business Texts: Use a designated business contact number to send and receive messages. Ensure no messages are unanswered, thus increasing customer satisfaction. Improve response rates.

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#27

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Analyst Rating Summary

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User Sentiment Summary

90%

of users recommend this product

Twilio has a 'excellent' User Satisfaction Rating of 90% when considering 630 user reviews from 4 recognized software review sites.

89%

of users recommend this product

3CX has a 'great' User Satisfaction Rating of 89% when considering 613 user reviews from 4 recognized software review sites.

4.2 (15)

4.3 (14)

4.5 (333)

4.4 (352)

4.6 (241)

4.5 (229)

4.3 (41)

4.8 (18)

Awards

Synopsis of User Ratings and Reviews

Easy Setup: Twilio's user-friendly interface and comprehensive documentation make it easy for users to set up and configure their phone systems without requiring extensive technical expertise.

Scalability: Twilio's cloud-based platform allows businesses to easily scale their phone systems up or down as needed, accommodating growth and changing communication requirements.

Global Reach: With its extensive global infrastructure, Twilio enables businesses to establish a local presence in various countries and regions, facilitating international communication and expansion.

Integrations: Twilio integrates seamlessly with numerous business applications and CRM systems, streamlining workflows and enhancing productivity.

Customization: Twilio provides a wide range of APIs and tools that allow businesses to customize their phone systems to meet their specific needs and preferences.

Cost-Effective: 3CX offers a significant cost savings compared to traditional phone systems, eliminating the need for expensive hardware and maintenance contracts.

Feature-Rich: 3CX provides a comprehensive suite of features, including call forwarding, voicemail, video conferencing, and CRM integration, meeting the diverse needs of businesses.

Scalability: 3CX can easily scale to accommodate growing businesses, allowing for seamless expansion without the need for costly upgrades or additional hardware.

Pricing Structure: Twilio's pay-as-you-go pricing can lead to unpredictable costs, especially for businesses with fluctuating call volumes or those that use premium features like call recording or transcription. The lack of bundled plans may also make it difficult to budget for communication expenses effectively.

Customer Support: Obtaining timely and effective support can be challenging, particularly for users on the free tier or those with less complex issues. The support structure often relies on community forums and documentation, which may not provide immediate solutions for urgent problems.

Learning Curve: Integrating Twilio's APIs and configuring its services can require a significant investment of time and technical expertise. This can be a barrier for businesses without dedicated development resources or those seeking a more out-of-the-box solution.

Limited Call Handling: 3CX can struggle to handle high call volumes, leading to dropped calls and long wait times, which can be detrimental for businesses that rely heavily on phone communication.

Integration Challenges: Integrating 3CX with other business applications, such as CRM systems, can be complex and time-consuming, hindering productivity and workflow efficiency.

Limited Customization: 3CX offers limited customization options, making it difficult for businesses to tailor the system to their specific needs and branding, which can impact user adoption and satisfaction.

Twilio has earned a reputation as a leading cloud communications platform, empowering businesses to build, scale, and operate customized communication solutions. Its flexible platform, powerful tools, and global infrastructure make it easy for businesses to create solutions that meet their unique needs and help them connect with customers in a meaningful way. Users appreciate Twilio's ease of use, scalability, and flexibility, making it a solid choice for businesses of all sizes that need a cloud-based communications platform. It offers a variety of features that can help businesses improve their communication with customers, such as call routing, voicemail, and analytics. The platform's ability to integrate with various channels like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Webchat ensures sustained engagement through features like click-to-dial, automated text notifications, intelligent routing, and callback service during peak hours. However, some users have expressed concerns about Twilio's customer support and its complex pricing structure. The pay-as-you-go fees can be more expensive compared to other CPaaS platforms, especially for businesses with high-volume communication needs. Despite these drawbacks, Twilio remains a popular choice due to its comprehensive features and ability to adapt to evolving business requirements. Its low-code builder, Studio, allows developers to design efficient self-service call flows and trigger custom business processes, while its Voice API enhances audio conferencing infrastructure. Twilio is particularly well-suited for businesses seeking a customizable and scalable communication solution that can integrate with existing applications and workflows. Its ability to handle various communication channels and provide detailed analytics makes it a valuable tool for businesses looking to enhance customer engagement and streamline communication processes.

3CX, a business phone software, has received positive user reviews over the past year. Users praise its ease of use, feature-richness, and cost-effectiveness. Compared to similar products, 3CX stands out for its intuitive interface, which makes it easy for users to set up and manage their phone systems. Additionally, 3CX offers a wide range of features, including call recording, voicemail, and video conferencing, which are essential for businesses of all sizes. One of the key differentiating factors of 3CX is its open-source nature. This allows businesses to customize the software to meet their specific needs. For example, businesses can integrate 3CX with their CRM or ERP systems to streamline their workflows. Another important factor is 3CX's affordability. Compared to proprietary solutions, 3CX offers a more cost-effective option without compromising on features or quality. Overall, 3CX is a well-rounded business phone software that is suitable for businesses of all sizes. Its ease of use, feature-richness, and affordability make it a great choice for businesses looking to improve their communications.

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FAQ

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