Novu vs Sendbird(2026)
Novu is better for teams that need open source. Sendbird is the stronger choice if best for chat-heavy apps. Novu is open-source (from $250/month (cloud)) and Sendbird is freemium (from $399/month).
Full feature breakdown, pricing details, and pros & cons below.
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Novu
Novu is an open source notification infrastructure for managing in-app, email, SMS, push, and chat notifications via a single API.
Starting at $250/month (cloud)
Visit NovuSendbird
Sendbird provides in-app chat, messaging, video calls, and push notification APIs for mobile and web applications.
Starting at $399/month
Visit SendbirdHow Do Novu and Sendbird Compare on Features?
| Feature | Novu | Sendbird |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | open-source | freemium |
| Starting price | $250/month (cloud) | $399/month |
| Multi-channel notifications | ✓ | — |
| In-app notification center | ✓ | — |
| Workflow builder | ✓ | — |
| Digest & batching | ✓ | — |
| Subscriber management | ✓ | — |
| Provider-agnostic | ✓ | — |
| In-app chat API | — | ✓ |
| Push notifications | — | ✓ |
| Video & voice calls | — | ✓ |
| Moderation tools | — | ✓ |
| AI chatbot | — | ✓ |
| UIKit components | — | ✓ |
Novu Pros and Cons vs Sendbird
Novu
Sendbird
Should You Use Novu or Sendbird?
Choose Novu if…
- •Open source
- •Multi-channel (email, SMS, push, in-app)
- •Self-hostable
Choose Sendbird if…
- •Best for chat-heavy apps
- •Prebuilt UIKit
- •Video calls included