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!