Sendbird vs Stream: A Comprehensive Comparison

Choosing the right communication platform can have a major impact on your app’s success — it directly affects user engagement, retention, and overall experience. Among the top contenders in this space, Sendbird and Stream stand out as two of the most popular in-app chat solutions. Developers often find themselves comparing Sendbird vs Stream to determine which offers better performance, scalability, and ease of integration. In this guide, we’ll provide a detailed comparison of both platforms to help you decide which one best fits your project needs.

What is Sendbird?

Sendbird is a cloud-based communication platform that offers feature-rich communication solutions. It enables you to integrate chat, voice, video, live streaming, and cross-channel messaging into websites and mobile apps. Besides, developers can access APIs and SDKs that will offer innovative features like real-time messaging, AI chatbots, moderation, and customer support.

It also facilitates one-on-one, small-group, and large-group conversations using emojis and reactions. Besides, it delivers notifications using push, email, SMS, and in-app notifications to keep users in touch. Hence, all these features make this platform ideal for social apps, marketplaces, communities, and customer support scenarios.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Sendbird

When you compare Sendbird vs Stream chat, you might want to know where Sendbird excels and lacks. Therefore, this section highlights the benefits and disadvantages to determine if it’s an ideal choice.

Advantages

• Supports private/group chat, reactions, media, and bots.
• Ready-made UI components allow branding and rapid integration.
• Handles millions of users efficiently via a global edge network.
• Tracks engagement, channel activity, and user trends effectively.
• Proactive and responsive support aids in integration and production issues.

Disadvantages

• Messages may be out of order or occasionally dropped.
• Pricing rises with active users and concurrent connections.
• Obscure frontend stacks need manual implementation, slowing launches.
• Non-technical teams may face a learning curve in onboarding.
• Regular updates can introduce occasional bugs or compatibility issues.

What is Stream?

Stream is a cloud-based platform that helps developers add scalable features to web and mobile apps. Moreover, its APIs and SDKs enable feature-rich messaging experiences with low latency for smooth interaction. It also supports millions of concurrent users across social, gaming, marketplaces, virtual events, and support applications.

This platform even comes with enterprise-grade scalability with distributed architecture, message queues, and reliable event streaming. Furthermore, for security and privacy, its GDPR/SOC2 compliance, AI-powered filtering, reporting, user muting, and secure authentication are leading.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Stream

If you want to compare Sendbird vs Stream in detail, you need to know what positive or negative aspects Stream has. Thus, this section will offer you 5 perks and 5 pitfalls of this platform to know which one is better.

Advantages

• Edge infrastructure ensures fast messaging for millions worldwide efficiently.
• SDKs and UI kits enable rapid chat and feed deployment.
• AI moderation, secure messaging, GDPR, and SOC2 compliant.
• Supports large communities and viral events without performance issues.
• Responsive help, rich documentation, and an active community aid in troubleshooting.

Disadvantages

• No built-in whiteboard support; it requires a third-party or custom setup.
• Deep customization of UIKits or workflows can be complex.
• Lacks native support for rich structured messages like product cards.
• Messaging logic and infrastructure customization are limited.
• Large-scale apps may face high costs; no self-hosted options.

Sendbird vs Stream: Which One is Right for You?

For Sendbird vs Stream, if you want to make a quick choice for app development, this section is for you. So, here we have compared both these platforms in detail to decide which one is best and why.

Metric / Feature	Sendbird	Stream (GetStream)
Core Use-Cases	Chat, voice/video calls, live support, omnichannel messaging	Chat, activity feeds, messaging, social, gaming, live events
API & SDK Coverage	iOS, Android, Web, React Native, Unity, etc.	React, React Native, Swift, Compose, Flutter, iOS, Android, etc.
Pre-built UIKits	Yes, highly customizable UIKit	Yes, social and chat UIs, themed, highly customizable
Chat Room Types	1-1, group, supergroup (up to 20K+ users), open/private	1-1, group, open channels (up to ~2.5K users default; scalable via enterprise)
Max Concurrent Users/Room	Up to 20,000 (Supergroups)	Up to 2,500 per open channel
Global Infrastructure	Hosted on AWS with multi-region deployments	Global PoPs and data centers across multiple regions
Reliability/Uptime SLA	99.9% on paid plans	99.9% uptime SLA
Message Throughput/Rate	Dynamic per plan; no fixed 5/sec cap	Dynamic; no fixed throughput limit publicly stated
Message History/Storage	Unlimited	Unlimited
Guaranteed Delivery/Ordering	Ordered delivery per channel (not guaranteed across clusters)	Guaranteed ordering and delivery within channels
Multi-Region Data Replication	Available via enterprise setup	Supported, depending on data locality settings
No Single Point of Failure	No (single cluster risk)	Yes (edge network design)
Low Latency	Unknown figure	Typical 170ms region-to-region
Server-side Batching	No	Yes
Connection State Recovery	Yes (SDK auto-reconnect & catch-up)	Yes (state is recovered on reconnect)
Notifications (Push/SMS/Email)	Omnichannel support (in-app, push, SMS, email)	In-app notification feeds only; external, not native
Role-based Permissions & Moderation	RBAC, console, AI/manual moderation, message search	RBAC, AI-powered & rules moderation, filtering, dashboards
Collaboration Capabilities	Live cursors, avatar stacks, member locations	Not natively supported
Analytics & Insights	Advanced analytics, channel stats, and user trends	LiveOps dashboard, activity analytics, reporting
Integration Customization	Flexible, slightly more customizable (score: 8.7/10)	Flexible, modern approach (score: 8.3/10)
AI/Automation	AI-powered moderation, bots, translation, and agent automation	AI moderation, connectors, chatbots, automod tools

ZEGOCLOUD: A Better Alternative to Sendbird and Stream

If you’re looking for a communication platform that goes beyond basic in-app chat, ZEGOCLOUD stands out as a powerful alternative to both Sendbird and Stream. While Sendbird and Stream mainly focus on messaging APIs, ZEGOCLOUD provides a complete real-time communication solution, integrating chat, voice, and video calls, live streaming, and AI-driven interactions under one platform.

With its global network covering 200+ countries and 500+ edge nodes, ZEGOCLOUD delivers ultra-low latency (around 300ms) and high-quality performance for users worldwide. It also offers flexible pricing, developer-friendly UIKits, and cross-platform SDKs, enabling faster deployment and lower total cost of ownership.

Feature Comparison: Sendbird vs Stream vs ZEGOCLOUD

Feature / Capability	Sendbird	Stream	ZEGOCLOUD
In-App Chat	✅	✅	✅
Voice & Video Call	❌	❌	✅
Live Streaming (1-to-N / N-to-N)	❌	❌	✅
AI-Powered Real-Time Features	❌	❌	✅
Global Network Coverage	Limited	Limited	200+ countries, 500+ edge nodes
Average Latency	500–800ms	600ms	300ms
SDK Availability	Web, iOS, Android	Web, iOS, Android	Web, iOS, Android, Flutter, React Native, Unity
UIKits for Quick Integration	Partial	Partial	Full prebuilt UIKits
Pricing Model	Based on MAU	Based on Usage	Minute-based + Free 10,000 minutes
Security & Compliance	Standard Encryption	Standard Encryption	End-to-End Encryption, GDPR, CCPA
AI & Digital Human Support	❌	❌	✅

Compared with Sendbird and Stream, ZEGOCLOUD offers more flexibility, richer real-time features, and lower latency, making it ideal for building chat, live streaming, or social apps that require smooth, global communication. Its pay-as-you-go model and easy integration help startups and enterprises scale efficiently without compromising performance or quality.

Conclusion

In conclusion, if you are confused between Sendbird vs Stream, this article is the answer for you. Here, we have compared both platforms in detail so that you can decide which one suits your skills. However, if you prefer an affordable and customizable option, ZEGOCLOUD is undoubtedly the ultimate choice.