Nexmo was founded in 2010 as a direct Twilio competitor, offering SMS and voice APIs with strong European carrier relationships and competitive pricing. Vonage acquired Nexmo in 2016 and rebranded it as the Vonage API platform, though the Nexmo brand continued to appear in documentation and developer resources for years afterward. Ericsson acquired Vonage in 2022, adding a third layer of corporate identity to what developers still commonly search for as Nexmo, making it important to understand that evaluating Nexmo today means evaluating the Vonage API platform under Ericsson's ownership.
What Nexmo Became and What Changed
The core Nexmo API products, including SMS, voice, number management, and verification, survived the Vonage acquisition and remain available through the Vonage API platform with largely the same REST API structure that Nexmo developers were familiar with. Vonage added its own products to the portfolio, including the Video API (from the TokBox acquisition), improved documentation, and a developer portal with unified account management. The Ericsson acquisition added enterprise telecom credibility and carrier infrastructure depth, but also introduced organizational complexity that has resulted in some product investment slowdown compared to Twilio's continued rapid feature shipping. Existing Nexmo applications built against the original API should continue to function without modification, as Vonage has maintained backward compatibility carefully.
Pricing in the Post-Nexmo Era
Vonage API pricing for US outbound SMS runs approximately $0.0063 per message, which was historically Nexmo's competitive positioning below Twilio's $0.0079. Voice calling is priced at approximately $0.0132 per minute outbound, again slightly below Twilio's $0.014. The pricing gap between Vonage API and Twilio is smaller than it appears when factoring in Twilio's volume discount programs, which can reduce effective per-message costs by 10 to 25 percent for committed-volume customers. Vonage also offers volume discounts through its sales team, but the process requires a sales conversation rather than Twilio's transparent self-serve discount tiers.
Developer Experience Under Ericsson Ownership
The Vonage developer portal has improved since the Nexmo days, with unified API keys, better documentation search, and a redesigned quickstart experience. However, the community and third-party ecosystem around Vonage API is significantly smaller than Twilio's, with fewer Stack Overflow answers, fewer open-source integrations, and less tutorial content from independent developers. Ericsson's ownership has not accelerated the developer experience investments that would be needed to close this gap with Twilio. For teams already building on the Nexmo or Vonage API that are satisfied with their current setup, there is no urgent reason to migrate; for teams starting fresh, Twilio's documentation depth and community resources provide a lower barrier to production.
Which Platform Should You Choose
If you are an existing Nexmo or Vonage API customer with a working implementation, the most practical advice is to stay on the platform unless you have a specific reason to migrate: your costs are competitive, the API works, and migration carries engineering risk. If you are starting a new project and comparing Twilio against what you find when searching for Nexmo, we recommend evaluating Twilio for its broader product catalog and larger community, or Vonage API specifically for its video API and European carrier strength. Teams with significant traffic in the UK, Germany, or France sometimes find Vonage API's carrier relationships produce better delivery rates than Twilio in those specific markets. Our team can run a delivery rate comparison across your target countries before you commit to either platform.
Conclusion
Nexmo is now Vonage API, and the comparison with Twilio is a close one on price and API capability with Twilio winning on ecosystem depth and product breadth. Contact our team if you are an existing Nexmo customer evaluating your platform options or a new team deciding between Twilio and the Vonage API platform.
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