Stream vs. Sendbird©*
Chat APIs compared on channel size, SDKs, moderation, and price, plus how to move from one to the other.
Switching from Sendbird? Get up to 25% off your Sendbird contract.
- No capvs. 100Members per group channel
- Lifetimevs. 6 monthsMessage history
- 100vs. 20Concurrent connections on the free plan
- $399vs. $429Monthly starter price at 10,000 MAU, billed annually
The short answer.
Stream is built for developers adding chat, video, feeds, and/or moderation to their product, with toolkits like Vision Agents for building real-time voice and video AI agents. Its channels have no member cap, with a 5 million-concurrent-connections benchmark for a single channel, and its AI moderation covers text, images, video, and audio. Stream stays focused on developer APIs while Sendbird now leads with its AI customer service platform.
Sendbird may make more sense if customer service is your main use case. It sells AI customer service agents (now branded delight.ai), business messaging, and a Salesforce connector alongside its chat API. Moderation covers only text and images, and only for its Chat API, with two separate outsourced tools.
Why teams choose Stream.
No member cap on channels.
Sendbird group channels hold 100 members, and its largest supergroups 20,000. Its open channels reach 20,000 participants by splitting them into subchannels, 10 of 2,000 by default, whose participants can't see each other's messages.
Video that scales to large live audiences.
Stream's published benchmark streamed 1080p video to 100,000 participants, and customers like Patreon and Care.com run video on Stream. Sendbird Calls supports group video calls of up to 6 participants.
Multimodal moderation.
Stream Moderation applies one policy across text, images, video, and audio, and it's seamlessly turned on from the dashboard. Sendbird only supports chat and images, and only inside its own chat API.
Infrastructure for high-traffic apps.
eBay, Kalshi, Polymarket, Strava, Bumble, Nextdoor, and more enterprise companies run communication on Stream.
Side-by-side.
- Group: 100
- Supergroup: 2,000+ on Pro, up to 20,000 on Enterprise
- Open: 1,000, or 2,000 to 20,000 with dynamic partitioning in shared regions
Moving from Sendbird to Stream.
Stream has a documented migration path for Sendbird customers designed to get you up and running in under four weeks. With a zero data loss, zero downtime guarantee, it includes an import tool, real-time sync for Enterprise plans, and free migration support for 30 days. Stream also has a migration skill that lets your coding agent move your app's code for you.
Build a proof of concept
Try Stream's tutorial for your platform
Export your data
Export from Sendbird, then test-import a small set
Sync both systems
On Enterprise, Sendbird's webhook feeds Stream live
Switch over
Ship the update, then turn off Sendbird
Companies that moved from Sendbird to Stream.
These teams migrated from Sendbird to Stream, and some tested both before choosing. Across all migrations, Stream has moved customers with more than 100 million users and terabytes of data.
Migrated
Tested both
Who builds with each platform.
A sample of Stream's and Sendbird's customers, by use case.
Sendbird's featured case studies mostly cover customer service, including Virgin Mobile, Redfin, Hostelworld, and Maya, with results reported as support cost, CSAT, and automated resolution.
Customer logos are based on each vendor's public website and case studies, checked October 2026.
Chat SDKs compared.
Stream invests in its SDKs: new releases every one to two weeks, UI kits redesigned in 2026 for Liquid Glass and Material 3, and native SwiftUI and Compose kits built on the latest platform technology, with full source on GitHub. Teams that moved from Sendbird cite the quality of the SDKs, which run live chat at Polymarket, Kalshi, eBay, Fanatics, and more.
This comparison is based on each vendor's public documentation, checked October 2026.
Performance & global edge network.
Stream has run an edge network on six continents since 2021 and publishes the result. In 2023, Sendbird argued that an edge network only speeds up the first connection, calling it "a marketing claim used to give a perception of innovation." In May 2025 it introduced its own edge proxy and reported about a 50% cut in initial connection latency, but it hasn't published its locations or a benchmark.
Pricing for 10,000 MAU.
Stream Start
$399
per month, billed annually
Offline support, advanced moderation and filters, data export; message history for as long as your plan is active
Sendbird Starter
$429
per month, billed annually
Messaging essentials, basic moderation, ticketed support; 6 months of message history
Stream Elevate
$599
per month, billed annually
Adds multi-tenancy, advanced search, HIPAA, and translation
Sendbird Pro
$579
per month, billed annually
Adds translation, data export, image moderation, and supergroup channels
Prices from each vendor's pricing page, October 2026.
Example: a community app.
Say your app has 10,000 MAU, groups of 500 members, and a need to export chat data. Sendbird group channels hold 100 members, so larger groups need supergroup channels, which don't support read or delivery receipts. Supergroup channels and data export are both on Pro, at $579 a month. Stream includes large channels and data export on Start, at $399 a month. That is $180 less each month, or $2,160 a year.
- $399 Start, with large channels and data export
- $579 Pro, the first plan with supergroup channels and data export
Limits at 10,000 MAU.
StartStream's pricing page lists the rate for each metered item in its self-serve plans, so you can estimate your bill before you sign. Sendbird's pricing page says "overages may apply" on Starter and Pro and doesn't list rates, so the only way to price a spike is to ask sales.
"Stream was affordable, especially compared to other vendors like Sendbird, and their pricing made sense for us since we were planning to open this to every student."
Moderation side-by-side.
- 5vs. 2Content types moderated
- 28vs. 5Image categories benchmarked
- 100vs. 5Threshold settings per image category
- 50+vs. ~30Languages for text moderation
Stream Moderation checks text, images, video, and audio against one policy, with 35+ harm categories, and publishes how fast and how accurate it is. The tool can be used on any platform with user-generated content, or integrated with Stream Chat, Feeds, and/or Video. It's deployed at enterprise scale by companies like Kalshi, Polymarket, Robinhood, and eBay.
Sendbird moderates chat text and images, and only inside its own Chat API, with two separate tools: Hive AI for text, sold as an add-on, and Google Cloud Vision for images on Pro. Its built-in tools may be enough for a chat-only app that needs rules, a review queue, and image scanning.
Sendbird's figures come from its Platform API docs and, for text, from Hive's documentation of its text model. Stream's come from its docs and published benchmark. Checked October 2026.
Sendbird's feature chart, checked.
Sendbird's website has a chart of features it says Stream lacks. We checked each row against Stream's documentation and pricing page for an accurate, up-to-date comparison.
Feature list checked October 2026.
The rows Stream doesn't offer are the customer service and business messaging products Sendbird sells alongside its chat API. Stream's focus is developer APIs and toolkits for chat, video, feeds, moderation, and AI agents.
Frequently asked questions.
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