Introduction
Virtual events are becoming more and more popular. Even though covid is over now, the trend for virtual and hybrid events has taken hold.
If you are looking for a chat solution to add next to your live stream video, you are at the right place.
In this article, we are going to evaluate different live chat solutions that are designed for audience engagement in a virtual live event.
With these tools you can add chat right next to your video, many are white-label solutions and offer varied levels of customization and moderation.
Parameters to evaluate the Live Streaming chat service
These are the parameters that we think are important in a live streaming chat service and we will be evaluating the solutions based on these parameters and give them a score.
1. Ease of adding the chat next to live stream
this parameter examines how easy it is to add the chat solution next to your live stream.
Not only that how much time it takes to customize the look of the chat to match the website and what moderation options are available.
Basically, how much time it takes to get the chat solution up and running.
2. Scalability
Scalability is important especially when you are conducting large events.
Nowadays there are live streams with millions of online participants. Can the chat solution handle that?
What is the maximum number of concurrent connections can the chat solution handle. that is what we are going to establish with the scalability parameter.
3. Reliability
Reliability is definitely very very important. You have been preparing for the event for probably months and have spent a considerable amount of money in organizing the event as well.
On the day of the event, it is critical for everything to work properly, especially the chat solution.
That is why reliability is one of the most important aspects of the chat for live streaming
4. Support
Support is very important for that extra peace of mind
There are two types of support that we evaluate
- When integrating and setting up the chat solution with the live stream if you have any questions/concerns. Does the chat solution have a team of experts to help you out.
- During the event. You need to know the chat has your back with emergency phone/email support if something goes wrong.
Top 5 Live Streaming Chat services
- DeadSimpleChat
- SendBird
- GetStream
- Zegocloud
- Twillio Chat
1. DeadSimpleChat
DeadSimpleChat is the live streaming chat solution. Specially designed for live stream.
DeadSimpleChat can handle 10 million concurrent participants and has 100% uptime SLA plus tools for customization and moderation
Let us analyze the DeadSimpleChat in light of our parameters.
1. Ease of adding
adding DeadSimpleChat next to your live stream is just pasting the embed code where you want the chat to appear.
Customizing the chat is also very easy due to its UI based chat customization tool.
Moderation can also be done with the help of UI based tools and you can also easily create moderators as well.
Star Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
2. Scalability
DeadSimpleChat offers plans upto 10 Million concurrent participants and is by far the most scalable chat.
DeadSimpleChat has been used in event that have been broadcasted the world over and watched by millions of participants
Star Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
3. Reliability
With Guaranteed 100% Uptime SLA and emergency phone and email support, you can sure the chat works on your event day.
having spent so much time money and effort in organizing the event, a lot depends on the chat working on the day of the event.
DeadSimpleChat offers 100% Uptime with SLA agreement and 99.99% uptime with the SLA
Star Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
4. Support:
DeadSimpleChat offer both kinds of support that we are looking for in a Live Streaming Chat solution
- They offer integration support, you can email them or call them to get all your questions / concerns answers. If there are any special requests for example : with regards to customization or any other thing the customer success team is there to help you out
- Phone support comes free with DeadSimpleChat for your peace of mind during events. There is also email support for any kind of questions / concerns you might have
Star Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
here are some of the features of DeadSimpleChat :
- Support for 10 million concurrent online users
- Customization tool (UI based as well ability to write custom css)
- Single Sign on (automatically sign in users that are on your website to chat)
- 100% Uptime SLA and Guaranteed to perform during the event.
- Chat API and SDK and Webhooks (Everything is UI based but if you need apis for precision customization)
- Q&A Mode
- Polls
- Chat Analytics
- 24X7 Phone and email support
- Group and 1-1 chat
- Moderation tools
2. Sendbird
Sendbird is one of the leading chat providers. they offer many other services besides live streaming chat like marketplace chat, customer seller chat, etc.
Sendbird also offers video calling and voice calling APIs to integrate voice calling in your apps.
Let us evaluate Sendbird in the light of our parameters
1. Ease of Adding
Sendbird provides chat API and SDK using which you have to build your own chat. This is quite difficult as compared to the pre-built solution by DeadSimpleChat.
You need to have a developer to built the front end of the application for you, customization is easy because you are building the whole front end of the application yourself
Sendbird does provide UI kits that could help with the development
The process of building the chat application itself can take from weeks to months
Star Rating: ⭐⭐
2. Scalability
The chat solution is scalable up to 20,000 concurrent participants. Though minuscule as compared to 10 Million concurrent participants capacity by DeadSimpleChat
It is fairly usable for most use-cases and small events
Star Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
3. Reliability
Sendbird is a reliable chat solution, it offers 99.99% uptime and email support.
Sendbird does offer phone support but you need purchase it separately and you can also purchase the SLA agreement with Sendbird.
Star Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
4. Support
Sendbird does offer good documentation and UI kits but does not offer integration support through email or meetings with the customer success team.
DeadSimpleChat offers integration support with customer success team through email and meetings
Star Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
Total Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
3. GetStream Chat
Get Stream Chat is another provider of chat for various applications. You can create all sorts of chat with get stream like buyer seller chat etc.
Get Stream provides chat APIs and SDK for multiple programming languages and also provides the UI kit needed to build the front-end
GetStream is not a pre built chat application and you need to build out the front end yourself for your use-case.
Let us evaluate GetStream in the light of our parameters
1. Ease of adding
As getstream provide only chat api and sdk, you need to build the front end of the chat your self. It takes a lot of time, effort and money to build the chat application and then use it along with your live stream.
GetStream does provide UI kit that makes it easier to build out the chat but you need a developer and designer to design and build the chat application
Star Rating: ⭐⭐
2. Scalability
Get Stream chat scales up to 60,000 online concurrent participants that is great but tiny compared to the 10 million online concurrent users offered by DeadSimpleChat
Considering 60,000 is fairly good for medium events we can say getStream chat is good with regards to scalability
Star Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
3. Reliability
Get Stream offers 99.99% reliability and you can purchase even more reliable 99.999% reliable server uptime with a price.
Thus you can say that Get Stream is a reliable chat platform
Star Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
4.Support
Get Stream does offer good documentation but does not offer chat integration support via email or via meeting with customer success team
Get Stream also offer UI kit to help you build the application if you do not have a designer
Star Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
4. Zegocloud
Zegocloud is a complete chat solution with in-app chat api and group chat feature.
Zegocloud provides chat api and sdk solution, again here as well you need to build the front-end on the application yourself.
Zegocloud provides chat UI kit that you can use to build out the chat.
Let us evaluate the Zegocloud chat using our parameters
1. Ease of adding
Zegocloud provides chat api and sdk but you need to build out the chat yourself. So the chat time to market is quite long
Plus you incur additional development time and effort and cost to build the chat application
It is difficult to add chat using zegocloud
Star Rating: ⭐⭐
2. Scalability
Zeocloud does not scale to large number of concurrent participants and is limited for up to 10,000 participants only
It is good for small events and basically mostly used for in-app chat but not streaming chat application
Star Rating: ⭐
3. Reliability
Zegocloud offers 99.99% reliability and does not have any other plans for more reliable chat.
Basically zegoclound is designed for in-app chat and also has other products like video call and voice call api and sdk.
Star Rating: ⭐⭐
4. Support
Zegocloud has good documentation but does not offer integration support through email and phone
Star Rating: ⭐⭐
5. Twillio Chat
Twillio is a formidable player in the communications space. It has a lot of products like video calling, SMS, Whatsapp chat etc.
But it also offers chat API and SDK, using which you can build your own chat for live streaming
Let is evaluate the Twillio chat in light of our parameters
1. Ease of adding
It is difficult to add Twillio chat to your website for live streaming. It offers API and SDK using which you need to build the chat by yourself
Building the front end of the chat application has considerable costs and delays your time to market.
And introduces other issues like development time and design costs.
Star Rating: ⭐⭐
2. Scalability
Twillio chat can handle upto 7000 participants in a group chat. Which is much less as compared to 10 Million concurrent users that DeadSimpleChat offers
But 7000 users are good for small events
Star Rating: ⭐⭐
3. Reliability
Twillio chat offers 99.99% reliability which is on par with what others have on offering
Star Rating: ⭐⭐⭐
4. Support
Twillio has to offer good documentation but you need to build the chat your self.
But its documentation is difficult to access as compared to others as it offers multiple products and you need to navigate to where your documentation is there
Star Rating : ⭐⭐⭐
Conclusion
In this article we have evaluated the leading chat providers in the live streaming space. Here the Pre-built chat is only offered by the DeadSimpleChat.
The main feature of Pre-built chat is that it greatly helps with time to market and is cost effective and fast in implementation
I hope you like the article and the review that we have done.
Thanks for reading.