How to pick the right chatbot building platform?
How To Pick The Right Chatbot Building Platform?
[TLDNR: use the Mother Of all Bots to make selections based on 80+ criteria on 135+ bot building platforms based on 80+ criteria]
Starting out as a newbie in the “chatbot scene” last year, I quickly realized the landscape of bot building platforms was rapidly expanding but I had no idea how fast exactly and how many players there were at the time. In Facebook groups questions often came by like:
- “What is a good platform for making web chatbots and integrates with DialogFlow?”
- “What are the alternatives for ManyChat and Chatfuel?”
- “Wich platforms support making chatbots for WhatsApp?”
Suggestions were given by other bot enthusiasts and platform owners but still: picking the right software wasn’t easy. Comparing a couple of platforms is really time-consuming and often not all specifications can (easily) be found on a website.
I decided to do the obvious: make a list and crowdsource it on Facebook & LinkedIn and names of startups and well-known brands started pouring in. I quickly made a Google Form but of course, felt a bit ashamed for not using a bot for this 🙈 People btw started sending me private messages asking me to share my list, so I knew I was onto something very interesting here.
In the office of my friends at Botsquad (a great code-based platform you should definitely check out 🙂) the name of the bot about platforms was quickly agreed upon: the Mother Of all Bots!
Minimum Viable Bot (MVB)
My MVB was offering an overview of platforms per country. This way I could get my bot out there without having to know any details of the platforms. Later on, I added short lists with favorites in these categories:
- Enterprise
- Voice
- Messenger Marketing
- Saas Businesses
- Small Businesses
My MVP was offering an overview of platforms per country. This way I could get my bot out there without having to know any details of the platforms. Later on, I added short lists with favorites in these categories:
- Enterprise
- Voice
- Messenger Marketing
- Saas Businesses
- Small Businesses
You can check out the bot on Facebook Messenger.
What to filter on?
Later on “Advanced Search”* functionality was added with the help of the Botsquad team. Selections can be made on:
- Channels
- Facebook Messenger features (Broadcasting, Drip campaigns)
- Dialog building method
- Features (Version control, Role based Access, On premises installation, Open source)
- Integrations available right out of the box
- NLP integrations
- Native NLP engine (languages)
- Country of origin
For those that don’t have Facebook: click here 😉
Some Stats
- Currently, 139 platforms are listed of which 85 filled out their specifications needed for Advanced Search.
- Since telling the world about the Mother Of all Bots in June 50 platforms listed themselves and new ones are added almost daily.
- 31 countries are represented, 29% of the platforms are made in the USA.
I hope the MOB will help you doing your platform selection and I would love to hear what other tools/websites you use to get an overview of the exciting landscape of bot building platforms!
Barend Jungerius in discussions • Jul 14, 2019
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