Twilio's advantage is that they have amazing API documentation, and extremely low barrier to entry.

Yea, I tried to use SNS today but couldn't find any example code for Python. I got frustrated and signed up with twilio. After signing up and doing their test I was able to click directly to the Python example.

1. I love Twilio and I recommend it over pinpoint most of the time. The API is objectively easier and the documentation is better.

2.

    import boto3
    sns = boto3.client('sns')
    number = '+12345678900'
    sns.publish(PhoneNumber=number, Message='Hello, World')

Disclaimer: I work for AWS and wrote the post

OT: why on Earth would you call your library boto3, instead of something obvious, like aws?

I can't be the first person who was confused by this.

This would be a good Quora question for Mitch Garnaat.

https://twitter.com/jrhunt/status/913087294222905344

https://github.com/boto/boto3/issues/1023

http://acsonline.org/fact-sheets/boto-amazon-river-dolphin/

Here's the right twitter link sorry: https://twitter.com/garnaat/status/913093232917086209

I admit I don't use SNS but the boto3 docs are usually really well documented.

the integration between the python code and SNS is relatively well documented, but it is missing examples for how to actually achieve real-world results (such as sending yourself a text message).

Responding to this and the parent it was the lack of examples that made me change my behavior. Not the lack of documentation for boto3.

Also in my experience SMS is confusing (read: arbitrary and complicated rules per country) enough you want a domain expert available for support. Given the track record of other AWS products I find this unlikely.

That said, if you have an existing sms setup, this is quite exciting.

I have some Twilio stock. It has been under performing for the last year :$.

As a product, I hear that Twilio is great. But from what I've read, after their IPO last year, the have to close large Enterprise accounts and are having trouble. Amazon eating their lunch is not good news either. Also, is Twilio still using AWS?

Yes they are still using AWS entirely (as far as I've seen) in fact they've doubled down on their AWS commitment it seems by integrating with Lex and Connect.

Their stock isn't so hot right now but that's not terribly out of sorts for a relatively new company. Enterprise I've heard many stories about. Their commitment to starting with the developer is admirable though.

Twilio is in a very tough spot, because any relatively large account quickly realizes that they are big enough to roll out their own solution, and in 2017 is very easy to do, from stellar open source options to many vendors willing to sign up just about anybody as a wholesale account. And many have moved away, and will continue to do so. Even with the recent discounts, Twilio is way over priced, and its REST API is simply not in line with what is expected from a communications platform in this day and age. That's why they are trying to will continue to shift to hosted code. Corvisa (acquired by Shoretel) had it right when they had embedded lua.

Disclaimer: I do own some Twilio and several other telco stocks (but I still believe Twilio is way overvalued and buy on dips because a large carrier will eventually buy them out so I'm willing to go for the ride), but I make more money from companies dumping Twilio/Nexmo/Plivo and going with custom solutions.

What are some of the open source options?

Twilio is dead simple. An idiot like me integrated SMS alerts into my fantasy football injury notification app literally in the 15 minutes that I drink my coffee in the morning before leaving for work. And 10 of that was signing up for the trial and reading some docs.

>extremely low barrier to entry.

Isn't AWS' entry barrier even lower?

I think this makes the answer to your question "No"

https://www.twilio.com/labs/twimlets

I imagine this matters less for the larger customers spending a lot in this space.

True. But for every IBM spending hundreds of thousands of dollars, there are thousands of small companies spending hundreds of dollars. So long as you control the software, it's probably a wash in the end.

Not exactly, given that Amazon is using Twilio.