Read articles by Camilla Silva, senior marketing executive. She covers live streaming, community chats, engagement, retention, and product strategy across industries. Explore practical guides and expert insights in the Watchers Blog.

Camilla Maria Silva

Keep players talking without leaving the game. Learn what in-game chat is, must-have text and voice features, moderation basics, and how you can implement it for better retention.

Learn what in-game chat is, which text and voice features players expect, and how to build it into your game with SDKs or WebView to keep communication in-house.

In-Game Chat: Key Features, Text vs Voice & How to Build It

Ask any multiplayer team why they “fell off” a game and you’ll hear a fairly familiar theme: it became harder to play together, often because someone had to jump to Discord mid-session.A group of friends just wanted to get on the game after work, but now they’re explaining to each other how to make an account on a third-party app and fiddle around with it mid-game. An in-game chat keeps communication attached to the match and party, inside your product.This article should give you a feature checklist and a build/SDK/WebView decision guide. Let's get going.<h2>What Is In-Game Chat?</h2>In-game chat is the communication layer built inside the game client (and backed by servers) so players can actually talk while they’re in the lobby, matchmaking, spectating, or just actively playing.Now, this can be in text or voice (even both!), but the defining trait here is context: the game knows who’s speaking and what session they’re in.That’s different from “chatting about the game” in third-party chat apps like Discord, especially when the players will be bouncing between two chat apps for different friend groups. Those tools can be great for the community, but they’re usually pretty disconnected from in-session events unless you build deep integrations.For example, in a friend group, two players might be on PC, and the other is on console. The PC players can log into Discord, but the guy on console can’t (directly from their console). They’d then have to use another device like a phone or laptop, but now they won’t be able to hear the game audio and their friends at the same time.<h2>In-Game Chat Types</h2>We can see a few patterns show up over and over in successful titlesTeam Chat: More of a match-scoped channel to help the players stay coordinated—it’s typically just a small overlay.Party Chat: A persistent channel for a pre-made group for them to chat in, whether about the game or more candidly.Clan/Guild Chat: These are long-lived channels where the players all have roles. A lot more holistic than just a lobby chat.Lobby/Matchmaking Chat: Temporary chat that they use while they’re in a queue.Private Messages: 1:1 messages that persist between sessions.<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://watchers.io/post/Talking-Teaming-and-Thriving-How-In-Game-Chats-Affect-Players-Experience">Read about the best in-game chat examples</a><h2>Why You Need to Keep Communication In-House</h2>The business case for you to focus on here isn’t “players like chat.” It’s that communication is literally a multiplier for time spent together, and multiplayer games are increasingly social at scale. For example:<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.theesa.com/resources/essential-facts-about-the-us-video-game-industry/2024-data/">The Entertainment Software Association reports </a>190.6 million Americans play games; 61% play weekly, 74% play with others, and 88% have played online.<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://newzoo.com/resources/trend-reports/newzoo-global-games-market-report-2025">Newzoo estimates</a> 3.6 billion players and $188.8 billion in 2025 game revenues worldwide.&nbsp;<figure class="image"><img style="aspect-ratio:1500/854;" src="https://cdn.eu.watchers.io/c7fc7f09-f02d-4176-8d69-3c0bf415a46a.jpeg" alt="in-game chat example in LoL" width="1500" height="854"></figure><h3>The Downside of Relying on External Chat</h3>Even though Discord is widely used (reporting puts its monthly active user count at around <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.businessofapps.com/data/discord-statistics/#:~:text=Discord%20had%20200%20million%20active%20monthly%20users%20in%202023%20and%20560%20million%20registered%20accounts">200 million</a>), it still presents a separate identity and settings surface. On new-gen consoles, it’s more convenient than it used to be, but it’s still a workflow (for example, how PS5 users start Discord voice chats from the control center).But when players communicate off-platform:<ul><li>Your Retention Takes a Hit: Session flow breaks when people leave to manage comms, invites, or roles. It’s a hassle for players to fiddle with audio levels so they can hear the game and their friends at clear levels.</li><li>You Lose First-Party Data: You can’t tie conversation to in-game context for personalisation or offers without building a complicated bridge.</li></ul>If your co-op loop depends on coordination, and the fastest way to coordinate is outside your game, your core loop is renting critical UX from someone else. And that’s a key problem.<h2>In-Game Chat Features: Text, Voice, and Moderation</h2>Any good modern stack is doing three things at once: communication, social state, and safety. Here’s what matters most.<h3>Real-Time In-Game Text Chat &amp; Multimedia</h3>Text is the default for many players: it works in noisy environments, and it’s accessible (not everyone has a mic or feels comfortable speaking). At minimum, ship:Channels (team/party/guild) and private messages Reactions/GIFs and lightweight media Sensible limits and safe renderingNow, the hard part here is not UI—it’s latency and delivery. For in-game text chat, even small delays add up fast when players are coordinating in seconds. They don’t care how it works, just that it does work. Their messages need to arrive fast and reliably across shaky networks.A tip here would be to treat text channels like “lightweight chat rooms” with explicit lifetimes (match-scoped vs persistent). You’d even do the same for social hubs by separating “global” chat rooms from high-signal team channels.<h3>Text vs Voice: When Each Works Best</h3>Ideally, you’re looking to match communication to player context, so it’s not about choosing between text and voice and doing away with the other.Text chat is ideal when players can’t use a mic (shared spaces, noisy environments, etc.), and it’s a lot easier to moderate and archive. It’s also a lot better in terms of coordination - a quick “gg” or “defuse A” that stays around after a match.Voice chat, on the other hand, shines more in fast-paced moments where typing is too slow (tactical shooters or battle royals, for example), and it’s better for social bonding because of the whole tone and timing that comes with the emotion involved.So, the best approach is to offer both, then let the players control the experience with per-mode settings like push-to-talk or party-only voice.<h3>In-Game Voice Chat &amp; Video Chat Integration</h3>Voice is why co-op feels like hanging out instead of sending pings. For quality, delay targets matter. For example, ITU-T’s G.114 guidance is to keep the “mouth-to-ear” delay below about 150 ms, because that’s what makes interactivity essentially transparent for most applications.In a game, that would translate to a rule like: if their voice lags behind what’s happening on screen, players will stop trusting it. So, if you’re adding in-game voice chat on mobile, plan for some aggressive jitter buffering and fast reconnects when networks switch.<figure class="image"><img style="aspect-ratio:1500/795;" src="https://cdn.eu.watchers.io/c145be65-d3ba-4c17-9e36-55beba1b56c4.jpeg" alt="in-game chat implementation - example of Minecraft" width="1500" height="795"></figure>Where does video chat belong? It’s not for every title, but video chat can work for:Gaming watch parties / co-viewing inside a game hub Creator-led lobbies and spectator experiences<h3>In-Game Chat Moderation</h3>You can’t bolt safety on later. Even the <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.adl.org/resources/report/hate-no-game-hate-and-harassment-online-games-2023">Anti-Defamation League (ADL)</a> talks about how voice is a major venue for hate and harassment, and its surveys show that harassment is common. That’s especially because it’s seen as anonymous on the offender’s end. If you played games like Call of Duty: MW2 back in the day, you know that first-hand.So, your most effective approach is a layered one, and a good chat moderation program documents what you enforce and why.Player Controls (Must-Have)<ol><li>Mute, block, report</li><li>Per-channel settings (team vs party vs guild)</li><li>“Safe defaults” for new players and minors</li></ol><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://watchers.io/post/online-community-moderation">Read more about community moderation tools</a>Automation &nbsp;<ol><li>Profanity + spam filters for text</li><li>Rate limits and anomaly detection (flooding, copy-paste spam)</li><li>Voice analysis when appropriate (with clear disclosure and opt-outs)</li></ol>As we mentioned, Call of Duty used to (and still sometimes does) have a real problem with this, so Activision rolled out <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.callofduty.com/uk/en/blog/2023/08/call-of-duty-modern-warfare-warzone-anti-toxicity-progress-report">AI-supported voice moderation</a> in Call of Duty, publishing progress updates and explaining how players can disable voice in settings. &nbsp;Human Tools &nbsp;<ol><li>Review queues, audit logs, and consistent enforcement rules</li><li>Appeals and escalation paths for your more edge cases</li></ol>Compliance matters too! <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/rules/childrens-online-privacy-protection-rule-coppa">The Federal Trade Commission (FTC)’s COPPA rule covers</a> online services directed to children under 13 (or with actual knowledge they collect personal info from a child under 13).It’s also worth noting that platforms with massive youth audiences publish their safety approaches. Roblox, for example, shares transparency resources and safety system updates, including voice safety work. &nbsp;<h3>Presence, Status, and Social Layer</h3>Messaging alone doesn’t create community. The “social layer” is what turns a channel into a place players return to, so you’ll want to prioritise:Presence (online/offline, in match/in lobby) Friends list, invites, and parties Roles and lightweight activity (LFG, joinable states)<h3>Performance and Reliability</h3>Players only care that the chat works. It makes your job a bit easier, since you know what your requirements are:No lost messages (with retries and sensible ordering) Minimal latency under normal load Spike tolerance for launches and events Consistent behaviour across platforms<h2>How to Implement In-Game Chat: Build vs SDK vs WebView</h2><figure class="image"><img style="aspect-ratio:1500/579;" src="https://cdn.eu.watchers.io/ad6331b7-bf41-424c-9529-46c25bad5629.jpeg" width="1500" height="579"></figure>1. The Traditional Route: Building from Scratch Pros: Full control of UX, data, and customisation.Cons: You own everything that makes chat hard, including things like scaling, security, and abuse response. If you’re going to go down this route, you’ll want to budget for ongoing operations and a dedicated safety roadmap, not just “version 1.2.2. Using Chat SDKsThis is the common “ship fast” path: integrate a service so you can focus your engineering effort on game-specific UX (controller input, overlay behaviour, identity). &nbsp;However, it can be an illusion of the speed: SDK required constant releases synchronisation for all platforms.3. WebView/API/iFrameThe quickest option: chat integration requires time for UX architecting. Still, social tools released do not depend on main product releases, and users on all devices get updates simultaneously.The basic idea here is that you can embed a full chat UI inside the client and drive it with tokens from your backend. The risk is edge cases (keyboard, controller focus, safe areas, reconnect logic).<h3>Performance &amp; Overlay UX</h3>A chat UI should never feel like it’s fighting the game, so you ideally want:<ul><li>One-button toggle and quick reply or shortcuts for commands</li><li>Clear “reconnecting” states instead of silent failures that annoy your users</li><li>Audio controls that are reachable in two steps</li><li>Minimal HUD footprint</li><li>Cross-Platform Support</li><li>Cross-platform groups are pretty common nowadays: touch, keyboard, and controller. Fortunately, WebView-style UI can unify the presentation across mobile and web clients, so you’re actually maximising the number of people playing.</li></ul><h2>Beyond Messaging: Turning Chat into a Community</h2>Once you’ve got the bulk of the work out of the way and you’ve made the chat layer stable, you can now think about building up into community features: events, discussions, clip sharing, and creator-led spaces. Gaming communities are the most sticky, and tie your users to the games even after finishing. Communities allow you to attract new users due to word of mouth and retain users not just when they play, but when they communicate and observe their mates' gaming experience. Thus, at the end, social tools allow you to have your own Twitch inside your game, with all of this engagement.<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://watchers.io/post/in-app-community-guide">Read our guide on how to build in-app and in-game community</a><h2>Key Takeaways on In-Game Chat</h2>Before we wrap up, take a look at some of the key points we talked about:<ol><li>Keeping communication inside your product reduces friction and supports retention.</li><li>Must-haves: reliable text, voice where it fits, and layered safety (player controls + automation + human review).</li><li>Presence is your bridge between messaging and community.</li><li>Choose architecture based on constraints: build, SDK/API, or embedded UI, and plan for long-term operations either way.</li></ol><h2>Build Your In-Game Community with Watchers</h2>Please get in touch with us if you'd like to integrate in-app community chats with the high-level moderation system into your website, app, or game. We'll be happy to help you find the best solution.<h2>FAQs About In-Game Chat</h2><h3>What does in-game chat mean?</h3>In-game chat is communication that’s been built into the game so players can message or talk without leaving the client.<h3>What is the in-game chat feature?</h3>The in-game chat feature refers to a set of tools - channels, private messaging, voice, presence, and safety controls - that support real-time game communication for all players.<h3>How to build in-game chat?</h3>Build in-game chat by defining your channel model (team/party/guild), integrating identity/auth, and then designing moderation workflows. Lastly, pick an implementation path (build, SDK/API, or embedded UI).<h3>What is the best voice quality for in-game chat?</h3>Prioritise low delay and stability for high in-game chat voice quality. You’re ideally keeping mouth-to-ear latency under ~150 ms for natural conversation.<h2>References</h2><ul><li>Essential Facts 2024 | <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.theesa.com/resources/essential-facts-about-the-us-video-game-industry/2024-data/">ESA</a></li><li>Global Games Market Report 2025 | <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://newzoo.com/resources/trend-reports/newzoo-global-games-market-report-2025">Newzoo</a></li><li>Business of Apps - Discord monthly users | <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.businessofapps.com/data/discord-statistics/#:~:text=Discord%20had%20200%20million%20active%20monthly%20users%20in%202023%20and%20560%20million%20registered%20accounts">Business of Apps</a></li><li>ADL - research on harassment in online games. | <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.adl.org/resources/report/hate-no-game-hate-and-harassment-online-games-2023">ADL</a></li><li>ITU-T - Recommendation G.114 (voice delay guidance) | <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.itu.int/rec/dologin_pub.asp?lang=e&amp;id=T-REC-G.114-200305-I!!PDF-E&amp;type=items">ITU</a></li><li>FTC COPPA Review Guidelines | <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.ftc.gov/legal-library/browse/rules/childrens-online-privacy-protection-rule-coppa">Federal Trade Commission</a></li><li>Call of Duty - voice moderation rollout (progress report + FAQ + coverage) | <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.callofduty.com/uk/en/blog/2023/08/call-of-duty-modern-warfare-warzone-anti-toxicity-progress-report">callofduty.com</a></li><li>Roblox - transparency and safety updates | <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://about.roblox.com/transparency">Roblox</a></li><li>Talking, Teaming, and Thriving: How In-Game Chats Affect Players’ Experience | <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://watchers.io/post/Talking-Teaming-and-Thriving-How-In-Game-Chats-Affect-Players-Experience">Watchers blog</a></li></ul>

Looking for Sendbird alternatives to build thriving communities in your app or website? Read our guide to find the most suitable option for your goals, budget, and timing.

Looking for Sendbird alternatives in 2026? Compare 7 platforms by features, pricing and real-world use cases to choose the right solution for your product.

7 Best Alternatives to Sendbird in 2026

If you’re searching for Sendbird alternatives in 2026, you’re probably in one of two situations:- your product already runs on a chat or community stack and the Sendbird pricing / limits no longer work for you- you’re starting from scratch, comparing SDK and API-based options that will power in-app chat, communities, and live experiences for years ahead.<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://watchers.io/engagement-and-marketing-widgets">In-app community tools</a> can help you grow engagement, retention, and revenue, especially if your product is built around content, events, or multiplayer experiences. Sendbird is a well-known communication platform with strong capabilities and a growing AI product line. At the same time, many teams are now evaluating alternatives that are either more community-focused, more transparent in pricing, or easier to integrate with small engineering teams.This guide walks through what Sendbird is today, why teams look for alternatives, and seven options worth considering in 2026, including Watchers, which focuses specifically on live communities around content and events.<h2>What is Sendbird©?</h2>Founded in 2013, Sendbird is an API communication platform that integrates with various platforms. It offers chats, calls, and business messaging, with features like an AI concierge and an AI voice agent. Sendbird serves industries such as digital health, e-commerce, and entertainment, with clients including Hyundai, Noom, and Redfin.Sendbird provides APIs and SDKs for mobile and web, uses WebSocket connections, and offers UI kits and backend integrations.Sendbird serves clients from various industries but is best suited for enterprises or high-growth startups with large product or engineering teams. While seamless and highly customisable, it requires skilled developers. The company has refocused on AI agents and support, making it less suitable for community-building tools.<h2>Best Sendbird Alternatives in 2026</h2><h3>Watchers</h3>Watchers is a SaaS solution offering social tools based <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://watchers.io/community-chats">on live chat.</a> It integrates with iFrame or webview for a simple and fast setup, while allowing customisation. Watchers chats include widgets for engagement, both community-driven and platform-driven. To handle high loads and keep low latency, they have clusters on all continents that support thousands of users at once. For AI moderation, they use their own model and several ML models based on Google Gemini, which supports various languages.Key Features<figure class="image"><img style="aspect-ratio:1500/922;" src="https://cdn.eu.watchers.io/f44d05ac-d21d-4189-93b2-2a84d8dc4c7f.jpeg" alt="Watchers" width="1500" height="922"></figure><ul><li>Community live chat</li><li>AI assistants</li><li>AI moderation, filters, user tools, manual tools</li><li><a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://watchers.io/live-streaming">In-app audio and video live streaming</a></li><li>Semantic and sentimental analysis for deep insights</li><li>Social widgets that grow revenue</li><li>In-chat marketing widgets</li><li>Developed achievement system</li><li>Scope of APIs for seamless connection</li></ul>Pros<ul><li>Fast integration</li><li>Seamless experience for users</li><li>A lot of <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://watchers.io/engagement-and-marketing-widgets">engagement</a> facilities</li><li>Convenient system for in-app live streaming</li><li>Excellent and fast support</li></ul>Cons<ul><li>Iframe and webview solution supports customisation but with limitations: clients can choose colours, icons, and many other things, but some structural peculiarities stay as it is</li><li>In-chat video live streaming can be costly</li></ul><h3>GetStream©</h3>GetStream is a scalable, efficient communication platform based on API and SDK, designed for developers to build real-time in-app chat, video calling, and activity feeds. It offers tools like AI moderation, typing indicators, and in-chat file uploads, with pre-built UI components for fast integration.<figure class="image"><img style="aspect-ratio:1500/921;" src="https://cdn.eu.watchers.io/a3b8926f-a6c9-4351-abc6-69076a47f392.jpeg" alt="GetStream" width="1500" height="921"></figure>Key Features<ul><li>Chat SDK</li><li>Activity Feed</li><li>AI moderation</li><li>Video and audio calls</li><li>Video and audio live streaming</li><li>UI Kits</li><li>Video and voice agents</li><li>Simple usage after implementation</li></ul>Pros<ul><li>Sophisticated solutions that provides overall experience</li><li>Various features that can enhance the experience</li><li>Suitable for many industries</li><li>Stable and scalable</li></ul>Cons<ul><li>Costly: considering reviews on G2, various clients notice that the price at the end is much higher than expected, and continues to grow. Also, customers have to pay not just for monthly usage but for peaks Pretty complicated to request new features or changes due to the SDK architecture&nbsp;</li><li>Some users complain about audio and video quality</li><li>Absence of proactive guidance on how to use all of Stream's features; absence of a changelog</li></ul><h3>CometChat©</h3>CometChat is a cloud-based platform that helps businesses integrate real-time text, voice, and video chat with websites and mobile apps. They provide customisable UI Kits, SDKs, and APIs for development. CometChat typically serves health apps, ed tech, and marketplaces.<figure class="image"><img style="aspect-ratio:1500/921;" src="https://cdn.eu.watchers.io/0381e850-3112-4322-819a-8db289f9783b.jpeg" alt="Cometchat" width="1500" height="921"></figure>Key features<ul><li>Text messaging, voice, and video calling/conferencing.</li><li>No-code widgets for quick setup, UI Kits for front-end customisation, and flexible APIs for deep integration.</li><li>AI User Copilot for a summary of conversations, which analyses the latest 1000 messages.</li><li>Analytics provides insights into user behaviour, engagement patterns, retention, churn, and cohort analysis.</li></ul>Pros<ul><li>API support and webhooks</li><li>Responsive account managers</li><li>Regular new products</li><li>Easy integration</li></ul>Cons<ul><li>SDKs appear to have limitations, especially for customisation</li><li>Not too clear documentation, some integration methods are hard to find</li><li>High pricing, based on cost per visit instead of per user</li></ul><h3>PubNub©</h3>Pubnub is a real-time communication platform-as-a-service (PaaS) that offers APIs and SDKs to build instant applications. It supports real-time chat, IoT device signalling, GPS tracking, and live dashboards for many companies. Pubnub has one of the longest histories in this domain, having been founded in 2010. Last year, PubNub collaborated with DAZN to broadcast and provide interaction for fans during the FIFA Club World Cup 2025™.<figure class="image"><img style="aspect-ratio:1500/920;" src="https://cdn.eu.watchers.io/927d9069-d951-40ac-9809-ebea98a61a70.jpeg" alt="PubNub" width="1500" height="920"></figure>Key features<ul><li>Pub/Sub Messaging</li><li>Real-time messages</li><li>File exchange, and storage</li><li>True adaptive intelligence analytics platform to receive trends</li><li>BizOps Workspace dashboard</li></ul>Pros<ul><li>High reliability</li><li>Variety of functions</li><li>No latency</li><li>Relevant for various industry</li><li>Suitable for huge events</li></ul>Cons<ul><li>Unpredictably costly</li><li>Difficulties in the documentation navigation</li></ul><h3>Twilio©</h3>Customer Engagement Platform (CEP) was founded in the US in 2008 and offers a scalable platform to build communication channels, access contextual data, and use integrated AI-driven workflows. Unlike other companies presented here, Twilio focuses n customers rather than users, and on communication between a customer and a platform, such as SMS, phone calls, and emails. They also provide video API, conversation API, and engagement tools.<figure class="image"><img style="aspect-ratio:1500/921;" src="https://cdn.eu.watchers.io/5cde11c5-1e48-4e81-a894-e6bb90340b94.jpeg" alt="Twilio" width="1500" height="921"></figure>Key features<ul><li>Phone calls and video calls</li><li>Instant messaging, live chat</li><li>WhatsApp Messaging</li><li>WhatsApp Marketing</li><li>Screensharing</li></ul>Pros<ul><li>Reliability</li><li>Scalable CPaaS with excellent APIs</li><li>Detailed documentation</li><li>Customisable workflows</li></ul>Cons<ul><li>Complex initial configuration</li><li>Some of additional features require deep involvement of the client which can be irrelevant for small teams</li><li>Weak support on most of the plans</li><li>Pricing with hidden fees</li></ul><h3>Ably©</h3>Ably is a WebSocket platform that delivers a real-time layer for AI agents, real-time chat, notifications, live dashboards, and collaboration between users. They are known for great scalability and global availability. It is built primarily on Amazon's cloud infrastructure. Their core product is Ably Pub/Sub, Chat SDK, and Spaces SDK for building multiplayer collaborative components in apps. Users of Ably’s clients can collaborate synchronously.<figure class="image"><img style="aspect-ratio:1500/922;" src="https://cdn.eu.watchers.io/188b93f7-b489-4c79-90b4-197ea66e5c10.jpeg" alt="Ably" width="1500" height="922"></figure>Key features<ul><li>API chat features</li><li>AI agents</li><li>Notifications</li><li>Live dashboards</li><li>Campaign performance</li><li>Audience insights</li><li>History API</li><li>Push notifications</li></ul>Pros<ul><li>Low latency</li><li>Developer-friendly APIs and SDKs</li><li>Responsive customer service team</li><li>Precise SDK documentation</li><li>Excellent onboarding</li><li>Scalability</li></ul>Cons<ul><li>Complex initial configuration</li><li>Some of additional features require deep involvement of the client which can be irrelevant for small teams</li><li>Weak support on most of the plans</li><li>Pricing with hidden fees</li><li>Lack of enterprise dashboard to monitor</li></ul><h3>Social.Plus©</h3>Social.Plus was known as Amity, before this, as Eko. Initially, the company was founded in Thailand in 2012, but a year ago, they rebranded. In general, Social.Plus is a suite of pre-built white-label modules, SDKs and API that bring engagement features to clients’ apps or websites. They provide features like activity feeds, groups, profiles, live chat, and streaming. To improve community experience, they focus on AI-driven insights and moderation capabilities, also providing monetisation for their clients.<figure class="image"><img style="aspect-ratio:1500/920;" src="https://cdn.eu.watchers.io/aa6eb601-ca5c-414e-81a6-df2781205cfd.jpeg" alt="Social.plus" width="1500" height="920"></figure>Key features<ul><li>Communication Platform as a Service (CPaaS)</li><li>Customer-to-Customer (C2C) Community Marketing</li><li>Live chat</li><li>Online community management</li></ul>Pros<ul><li>Quick set-up</li><li>Easy customisation</li><li>Large number of features</li></ul>Cons<ul><li>Incomplete and outdated documentation</li><li>Weak admin dashboards</li><li>Can be difficult to manage large communities</li></ul><h2>How to choose the best Sendbird alternative</h2>The table below compares each company’s main product focus, the industries they serve, and how long setup takes.<figure class="image"><img style="aspect-ratio:1500/1438;" src="https://cdn.eu.watchers.io/8526ec1b-d3af-4a62-9ffc-8f73c460b9aa.jpeg" alt="comparison of Sendbird alternatives" width="1500" height="1438"></figure><h2>Build Your In-App Community with Watchers</h2>If you have an app or website and want a community platform to bring people together around your service, product, or content, try Watchers. We integrate easily with a webview or iframe architecture, so you do not need to synchronise release cycles to access our new features. Book a demo call to start the integration process, or <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://chatadmin.watchers.io/register">register directly</a> to explore our solution on your own.<h2>FAQs About Sendbird Alternatives</h2><h3>Who are the main Sendbird Competitors?</h3>For SDKs, the main Sendbird competitors are GetStream and Social.plus. For live chat functionality, Watchers is a strong competitor, offering a different architecture and a white-label solution with many in-chat features.<h3>Why do teams look for Sendbird Alternatives?</h3>Teams look for alternatives because of high pricing, an outdated approach to live chat and moderation, and the company's shift from community-building tools to AI support and agents.<h3>How to choose the right Alternative for your product?</h3>You need to understand your main goals and expectations, considering usage. Your goals help you choose a shortlist of solutions, and usage helps estimate the price. If your main goal is support chat, CometChat or Pubnub may be the best fit. If you want to build a community on your sports platform or VOD, Watchers or Getstream are top choices. Then, compare their pricing to decide which fits you best.

What does online community moderation mean, how do we measure its success, and what can we learn from Last of Us communities?

Learn how to moderate an online community. This playbook covers clear community guidelines, consistent report handling, and tactics to keep real-time chats respectful.

Online Community Moderation: Best Practices, Tools and Strategies

What are the most popular community engagement platforms, and what can you use as  the best alternative for them.

We reviewed the 10 best community engagement platforms for 2025 and show how Watchers lets you build your community inside your product without external apps.



10 Best Community Engagement Platforms in 2025 — Compare Top Tools

Community engagement, as a process of connection and collaboration, is crucial for any brand. It helps keep members supported and involved, and contributes to achieving common goals. Let’s dive deeper into  strategies, and how they should be applied.

Community engagement explained: definition, types, methods and real examples. Learn why it matters, best practices, and how brands build owned in-app communities.

What Is Community Engagement? Definition, Types & Real Examples

Collecting user insights is vital for providing a personalised user experience. Gathering information directly from your target audience will help improve the user journey and content strategy.

Learn how to collect first-party data with the right tools and why it matters.

First-Party Data: How to Operate With and Why Is It Crucial for Business

<div style="font-size:14px;line-height:1;" id="toc">Continuous development, driven by customer feedback, is a crucial component of any successful business strategy. But when it comes to identifying these insights, where do you turn? The easy answer is providing cusdev interviews, constant focus groups, or just voluntary surveys or interactions, but there is a tricky point.Firstly, people participating in such research can be, on the one hand, not sincere enough — trying to be polite or not to look critical; on the other hand, they try to be helpful and notice all potential problems and mistakes, while at the same time losing their real user impression. They can help to find some platform’s inconveniences, but being in an artificial situation, they can skip what is really important. Also, participants of any focus group or custdev present just a tiny part of your audience. But where to get insights from real users in satisfactory amounts?Continuous improvement based on user feedback is key to a strong business strategy. But when it comes to understanding user needs, where should you look?<figure class="image" style="margin-bottom:1vw;"><img style="aspect-ratio:2410/1378;" src="https://cdn.eu.watchers.io/6a57aca0-b2be-49b1-b5cd-6960f8d1311d.webp" width="2410" height="1378" alt="how to encrease user engagement: best practices"></figure>Obvious solutions include customer development interviews, focus groups, or voluntary surveys. Yet, these methods come with challenges. Participants might not be entirely candid, may overanalyse, or simply represent too small a portion of your audience. While these can uncover usability issues, they often miss the subtle behaviours that matter most. So, where do you get scalable, authentic insights from your actual users?One of today’s strongest approaches involves deriving real-time insights directly through your platform interactions. As digital marketing moves toward deeper audience understanding and AI-powered analysis, accessing meaningful audience signals is more critical than ever. But how do you translate engagement into strategic insight? And what tools make it easier?Focusing on users’ direct insights is one of the current digital marketing trends you can’t ignore, especially as the world heightens its focus on AI and datafication. However, many companies struggle to understand how to collect and utilise this information effectively. For example, why would you pick user insights over third-party data when the latter often comes cheaper? And what tools can you add to your platform to gather such primary insights?<h2 id="go-through-numbers">Going Through the Numbers</h2>Brands can obtain data from various sources. The most accurate information is acquired directly and consensually from the customer through surveys, questionnaires, reviews, social media engagement, and website interactions.Then you have second-party insights, which is very similar, except you’re using another company’s trusted first-party data. You interact with the company directly to obtain this information.Third-party data is different still. This is information typically purchased through an external data aggregator that has no direct contact with the customers. Third-party cookies, tracking details like browser history and time spent online, were once common in search engines, although companies like Apple and Google are already beginning to phase them out.<figure class="image" style="margin-bottom:1vw;"><a href="#go-through-numbers"><img style="aspect-ratio:1080/1080;" src="https://cdn.eu.watchers.io/c5d17a88-0299-418d-b5bc-b1f46e8cb28e.png" width="1080" height="1080" alt="semnatic analysis of ugc content is the key to first party data"></a></figure>And lastly, zero-party data is a relatively new data type that is almost identical to first-party. This involves information voluntarily and explicitly given by the customer, such as purchase intentions and communication preferences.<h2 id="why-direct-user-insights-matter">Why Direct User Insights Matter</h2>Data benefits your business by providing reliable information collected directly from your target audience. That’s invaluable in a world where <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/shephyken/2024/04/14/the-personalized-customer-experience-customers-want-you-to-know-them/">81% of consumers prefer </a>a tailored experience. Brands must adapt their digital marketing strategies to offer more personalisation for their customers. From budgetary figures alone, we can see this trend taking shape. In 2023, <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://admin.comviva.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/2023-Global-Survey-Report-The-Business-Value-of-Real-Time-Personalization-1.pdf">around 22% of a digital marketing budget</a> was allocated to personalisation. In 2024, that figure jumped to 40%. This highlights the significant importance of personalisation for both consumers and marketers.Direct users’ insights give you a deeper understanding of customer preferences and habits. You can identify which channels they prefer to interact with and learn about their browsing and purchasing behaviour in real time, what exact content they like and why. These insights then allow you to refine your marketing and content strategy to include personalised outreach and targeted ad campaigns, creating a more tailored approach and correcting the roadmap. And a more personalised approach brings additional benefits, such as brand loyalty and user engagement.<a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/367128795_The_Impact_of_Personalization_on_Customer_Loyalty_and_Retention">In his recent publication,</a> “The Impact of Personalization on Customer Loyalty and Retention,” Shezan Ahmed notes that “customers are more likely to make additional purchases and remain loyal to a business that personalizes their experiences.” Meanwhile, user engagement through first-party data is another benefit of increased personalisation. Customers are more likely to engage with your platform when you know exactly what they wish.By contrast, third-party data offers limited scope for personalisation. It does not come directly from your target audience, which means it provides little insight into the genuine wants and needs of your customers. This is why gathering first-party data is crucial.<h2 id="making-the-most-from-first-party-data">Making the Most of User Insights</h2>All sorts of companies can benefit from gathering first-party data. For example, sports apps, due to such insights, establish and sustain a likeable brand reputation — an important metric for clubs looking to cater to a diverse customer network.Another example? Fitness apps that use live streaming feeds for at-home personal training (like Peloton) can adjust staff schedules to accommodate busier times, thanks to insights on when users like to train and what kind of instructor they prefer.It’s evident that all of this is vital for companies in the entertainment industry. However, obtaining user insights can be difficult without adequate channels for user engagement.Collecting user insights helps companies identify the following user metrics: · Engagement levels · Busiest traffic times · Preferred communication channels · Most popular film and TV genres · Favourite sports to watch and bet on · Overall opinionsEntertainment businesses can then use these metrics to refine their offerings and enhance user engagement through the use of first-party data.<blockquote>User engagement is crucial for sports betting companies like Sky Bet and Paddy Power, where competition is fierce. If a sports betting app learns that its customers prefer to bet on tennis but have little interest in badminton, the site can then look to increase its coverage of tennis games (if it offers live streaming features) or broaden its betting markets for the most popular tournaments (like Wimbledon and the US Open). This data-driven marketing will likely increase customer retention and brand loyalty.</blockquote><h2 id="five-ways-to-collect-user-insights">How to Collect User Insights in Five Ways</h2>Implement a range of user insights collection strategies to gather a broad and varied scope of information from your customers.<h3>Use AI for Insights Collection and Tagging</h3>AI tools are on the rise. <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/mckinsey-digital/our-insights/superagency-in-the-workplace-empowering-people-to-unlock-ais-full-potential-at-work">More than 92%</a> of businesses are looking to increase their AI spending over the next three years. Fortunately, AI and analytics combine well. You can use AI tools to gather vast troves of data, including customer purchase history and frequency of communication, at once. Automated algorithms track these metrics and record each time a customer interacts with your brand. They then collate this first-party data to build a profile of every customer, allowing you to personalise the experience for each user.<blockquote>Tools like Bardeen use natural language to implement workflows that can scrape and enrich data in bulk. Other apps, such as Databricks, facilitate data analysis by learning your analysis habits and preferences.</blockquote>But you’ll need somewhere to store the masses of data you collect from AI tools. That’s where data lakes come in. An alternative to the rigid structures of data warehouses, data lakes are more fluid and flexible. They can house large amounts of data and allow analysts to compare and extract insights more easily.<h3>Send Out Surveys &amp; Questionnaires</h3>Of course, there are other manual methods of collecting first-party data. Surveys and questionnaires are classic examples of obtaining primary data right from the source. You can learn lots from your customers if they complete the form, helping you identify what aspects of your site are under and what are overperforming. Incentivise your users to complete the survey by offering a reward, such as a discount or a free in-app item.<h3>Integrate community in-app chats</h3>Chat rooms provide a unique setting for data collection. They allow app users to engage with your brand directly, offering unfiltered views on your services and voluntarily divulging preferences. Plus, the time stamps from each message tell you the busiest communication times.<h3>Add Comment Sections</h3>Similar to live chat rooms, companies can retrieve valuable information from comment sections. For example, a broadcaster could learn when users are most active via the number of comments over a given period. This would then allow them to show targeted ads at the most advantageous times.<h3>Second Screens</h3>Use the stunning experience of La Liga and use second screens to offer a space where users can engage with others without leaving your platform. Instead of losing valuable data to messaging sites like X and WhatsApp, you can gain insights into customer behaviour by recording the interactions on your integrated second screen.<hr> You’ve learned how to collect first-party data and why this process is crucial for your business. This is not one of those digital marketing trends that will fade quickly. Start implementing it in your customer success strategies now.<hr>Please fill out the <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://calendly.com/watchers-platform/social-tools-for-your?month=2025-08">Get in Touch form</a> if you'd like to integrate community chats and other tools for gathering user insights into your website or app. We'll be happy to help you find the best solution.</div>

Discover why gaming is better with a community. Explore features like in-app live streaming and real-time communication to improve engagement and keep customers coming back

Learn how to enhance engagement on your site through innovative features like in-app live streaming, chat widgets, and real-time communication. Integrate these tools into your platform to build a gaming community hub full of happy customers.

Live Chats and In-app Live-Streaming to for Gaming Platforms and Communities

How to use interactive consumption content pattern to boost the platform usage?

Boost content engagement with integrated community chats and interactive tools. Audiences of all ages now seek interaction through mobile devices, gaming, and second-screen strategies. Increase retention with live chats and gamification features.

​​​​Who enjoys the interaction while consuming content? Spoiler: Not just Gen Z

Who enjoys the interaction while consuming content? Who finds classical TV broadcasting a bit outdated and struggling for interaction while watching news, shows, and sports, applying to their smartphones and other mobile devices? Who adores interacting with a gamer before gaming themselves? The popular answer to this question is Gen Z, but this answer looks a bit outdated.&nbsp;When Gen Zers became a goal of entertaining companies, patterns with high levels of engagement and interactions appeared. However, patterns quickly spread around users and viewers of different ages and generations. As discussed during the ‘The Future of Content Viewing’ talk at the IBC summit this year in Amsterdam, talking about YouTube users as only young people is a mistake. That’s just a cliche; if you use it, you just avoid statistics and big data provided quite widely.Yet, if the cause differs, conclusions stay the same and even become more critical. Suppose such a pattern is widespread and applied by various people. In that case, services and brands must meet these needs through communication strategies and product development.Let’s look at various cases of such content viewing to realise how platforms can use this new habit for the greater good of both the business and the users.<h3>Boost games with social interaction</h3>There are different ways for games: from video games to iGaming, from single-player games to group and public ones. All of them can be enhanced with a high level of interaction while gaming, if we are talking about group games, and observing other players’ games, or between games, considering single-player games. This player can comment on their actions with audio or video, while other users comment on a chat with text, stickers, emojis, and gifs. Twitch, it seems like a video stream with commenting actions is a more customary and convenient approach, but we can argue that audio is much simpler. Streamers don’t need to prepare much for the technical part or, for example, their appearance; if the game is simple, they can play and comment from any place they locate in a moment. Also, their audio won’t distract users from the game when the video stream is too complete, content itself and sometimes can be very distracting from the main content we want users to pay attention to. At the same time, they can like, share, comment and respond to the streamer and the game process; this is engaging and sticky: users share their emotions here and are more likely to come back to your platform/app as they used to come back to Twitch and YouTube.&nbsp;How to do itYou can add audio or video streams with a chat to your platform with any type of game. Your gamers will provide streams to their gaming process, which will accumulate more users. Particular gamers can gather communities with the habit of consuming gaming content on your platform.<h3>Enhance watching of sports with dynamic interactivity and after-messengers habit</h3>Mobile-first and mobile-only audiences are growing, at the same time, the same audience watches programmes on TV because of traditions, habits, collective watching, and coverage. For example, some significant sports games and popular reality shows are broadcasted exclusively on TV. Such viewers lack attention to the TV screen and consume mobile content while watching TV. So, the goal for such an audience is to ‘keep their attention to the main content. It can be achieved with several tools. The first and primary is a second-screen approach: if viewers want to use their mobile phones while watching TV, you can provide them with this opportunity with a link to the main content. They can chat and discuss what’s going on in the main content; in this case, the second screen will be used as a community-building tool. Also, the second-screen approach helps to provide additional content for viewers, such as polls, quizzes, trivia, and bots that enhance the watching experience and focus the viewers’ attention on the content even when they would love to be distracted by their phones.How to do itThere are simple and more complicated ways. The easiest one is to connect a big screen to a mobile phone by scanning a QR code. So, users can scan QR on a TV screen and get into the chat as a specific mobile page or into your main app with additional features, polls, and tools for communications. The next level is to connect these devices in both directions: when users get into mobile by scanning something on the big screen, then they can send something to this screen: it can be some moderated messages, stickers, or emojis, which will be shown as a feed, or poll results.<h3>Grow retention with specific tournaments and rewards</h3>When users play on your platform, watch something, or use your app in any other ways but regularly, spending much time there, they wish to be noticed, and they wish to be entertained. Such a desire is also connected with gaming as it is: people get used to getting rewards even for the activities they like. Because of that, you can use gamification mechanics for users by assigning them different badges and achievements. But what does it mean if they can not show off with their rewards? It returns us to the talk about the community. Even achievements work better and give more joy to their owners if other users can see them and comment. Also, users value specific and exclusive things like special stickers, emojis, or new opportunities, with the usage of tools unavailable to most other community members. Users become sticky to the service if they get something there—you don’t want to throw away something you achieve.How to do itYou can add an opportunity for users to communicate in community chat, show their achievements there, and reward them with specific stickers. When you award users with badges, it is necessary to show the others how to get such a badge and stimulate them to take the target actions.*There are many opportunities to give users tools and ways to communicate how they got used to doing so. Variants depend on the type of content on your platform and the results you want to achieve. However, you should remember that retention is a crucial metric for almost all platforms, and successfully integrated community-building solutions grow it in any case.***<a style="color:inherit;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://watchers.io/form">Connect with us</a>&nbsp;if you plan to integrate or develop in-app social tools for real-time communication. We will help you find the most suitable solution.

FIFA Pro and Matrix Threat provided the last report on how they protected female athletes from online abuse during the Women’s World Cup. This report showed many significant conclusions and one big gap.

AI moderation tools work differently for integrated chat solutions and traditional social media. Which experience is more successful? 

The ways AI tools protect social media users and sports fans… If they really do that

<h2>Sports organisations' approaches to protecting athletes with or without participation of social media platforms</h2>Two years ago, FIFA and FIFA Pro presented the AI tool to protect players on social media after the European final between the UK and Italian national teams, which was full of&nbsp;abuse issues. This&nbsp;tool works as an integrated solution that athletes or clubs can turn on and link to&nbsp;their accounts on the leading social media platforms. All comments and posts with tags to this account that can be perceived as abusive or hateful will be hidden and reported, and the information on&nbsp;the author’s account will be gathered to de-anonymise them.FIFA uses this tool during significant international events. After two years, it’s possible to compare results and the level of&nbsp;discrimination during male and female football tournaments and make common conclusions on what is happening in sports communities on social media and how the social media platforms react to the reported issues.<figure class="image"><img style="aspect-ratio:1500/994;" src="https://cdn.eu.watchers.io/4c1a3008-c939-477b-b0ab-4524e7c647d7.jpeg" width="1500" height="994"><figcaption>©FIFA</figcaption></figure>According to the last reports after the Women’s World Cup 2023 and its compartments with&nbsp;World Cup 2022, the level of&nbsp;discrimination, abuse and hate speech is higher for female tournaments than male ones.<blockquote>“0.14% of posts and comments captured for analysis during the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023 by the monitoring system were confirmed to be abusive (7k out of&nbsp;5.1m). 0.10% of&nbsp;captured posts and comments during FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 were confirmed to&nbsp;be abusive (19k out of&nbsp;20m).“</blockquote>Also, the types of hate speech have changed. If during the World Cup Qatar, the most popular hateful comments were linked to racism, the most popular types of abusive comments during the Women's tournament are sexism and homophobia. The report even shows separate graphs for different countries, so we can see that haters worldwide find their own reasons to hate. All of&nbsp;this information is useful and significant, and this system can help athletes and other sports representatives avoid direct hate speech. However, we should remember that there is much more hate on social media outside&nbsp;official accounts, and authors of such comments do not so often tag the persons they address. So, while protecting just athletes’ and teams’ accounts, we don’t protect users, fans, families and friends of these athletes, as well as the unofficial accounts of these people.This latest report highlights a crucial point: X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram could ignore half of the reports until moderators intervened directly.&nbsp;<blockquote>“X has by far the highest volume of dentified, targeted discriminatory, abusive or threatening content, with initial takedown rates of&nbsp;39%. Where there was additional escalation to X after failure to act on immediate automated reporting, a takedown rate of over 95% was recorded—highlighting the value of&nbsp;direct platform engagement. The ability to escalate was not made available by all platforms.”</blockquote>Abusive comments on social media are a pervasive issue for various sports organisations. To tackle this problem, the French Tennis Federation (FFT) offered free access to the Bodyguard AI social media monitoring software during the Roland Garros tennis Grand Slam tournament. Similar to the FIFA tool, participants in the tournament could use this tool to moderate comments in real time. It also analysed responses in less than 200 milliseconds.<h2>What can you do to protect your audience?</h2>While AI-powered moderation tools are impressive, we must acknowledge that they only treat the symptoms of online harassment, not the underlying problem. Organisations have taken steps towards a solution by launching investigations and penalising those responsible for cyberbullying. Still, this approach is impractical for regular users who simply want to follow sports media accounts or engage with other fans.So, problems that are not solved:<ol><li data-list="bullet">If it is not a team's or player's official account, protection doesn’t work.</li><li data-list="bullet">Regular users are not protected.</li><li data-list="bullet">Social media platforms themselves do not participate in the process of protection.</li></ol>Because we provide public community chats, we see the importance of fast and furious moderation tools for all participants. We are developing tools that can detect all abusive and hateful comments and messages, regardless of who or for whom they were intended. We have three ML models, each more suitable for different cases. These tools can recognise various languages and check every message based on the particular language dictionary.Also, Watchers AI tools can be set to a specific topic of messages, because chats about horror movies and sports betting should be moderated differently. Our models aim to determine the optimal approach for each type of chat. Partners can also set the model's strictness level, depending on the particular platform’s policy or the average age of the users.So, abuse issues can be addressed in separate social media spaces, but what about the gigantic social media platforms? Will the number of such cases be increasing from tournament to tournament, from day to day? Will see.***<a style="background-color:transparent;" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://watchers.io/form">Connect with</a> us to discuss real-time AI-powered moderation that protects your users and viewers, and builds a trusted and healthy space for them in live public and private chats.

Building communities around the brand or platform is a reliable way to increase retention and revenue. 

Discover the best in-app chat solutions in 2025. Compare top community chat platforms, SDKs & APIs to build real-time, branded communication inside your mobile or web app.