There is a growing interest in artificial intelligence, pushing more users and businesses to adopt chatbots. All emerging and established companies continue to launch their AI chatbots to conduct one-on-one conversations with customers and their employees.
Today, more than 1.5 billion people use chatbots.
In addition, AI-powered chatbots can automate several tasks, including marketing, sales, admin tasks, and customer service.
This blog post will provide an overview of the best chatbot development frameworks that have grown in popularity over the last few years.
But before that, let’s find out the difference between chatbot platforms and chatbot development frameworks.
Chatbot Platform vs. Chatbot Framework
Many times, we use the term ‘chatbot development frameworks’ interchangeably with another term, that is chatbot platforms. However, both are different from each other.
Here is why.
We can refer to a chatbot platform as a service that allows marketers to maintain and create chatbots for various messengers, like Telegram and Facebook Messenger.
On the other hand, a bot framework is a collection of predefined functions and classes that developers use for advanced development. These frameworks offer a suite of tools that help developers develop code faster. Non-technical users and amateurs can benefit from bot platforms for creating bots without coding knowledge, whereas developers and programmers can use chatbot development frameworks to develop bots.
Most Important Factors to Analyze
There are many factors involved in developing a chatbot, but we can focus on the following points:
- Development tools
- Deployment
- Understanding
Development and hosting can usually be done using a local server with any programming language. However, if a platform offers an SDK that facilitates the development and hosting in the cloud, better than better.
Understanding the conversations is often more problematic, especially if you’re not part of a large company that can afford a team of engineers NLP / NLU, which will be the platform’s key point.
Searching for the best chatbot frameworks on the market, the ones that stand out the most and are most competitive are the following:
- Microsoft Bot Framework
- Dialogflow
- Amazon Lex
Let’s review them in detail.
Best Chatbot Development Framework: Microsoft Bot Framework
Developed by Microsoft, Bot Framework is a complete solution ideal for large enterprises with developers looking for severe customizations and robust capabilities. It is the most complete and powerful solution, with an arsenal of connectivity behind it.
Development Tools
Use Microsoft Bot Builder, an SDK that provides a set of predefined functions and classes in two languages: C# and Node.js. Actions for each user attempt must be created from the app side, meaning nontechnical team members might need help collaborating. However, it has some handy tools, such as Bot Directory, a repository with many chatbot examples already created, and Bot Emulator, an emulator that makes it very easy to test the chatbot.
It requires users to sign in with an Azure account. From there, developers can use the Azure Bot Service as a resource to build, test, deploy, and connect chatbots. You can also use Microsoft’s built-in IDE directly to write your code.
Deployment on Messaging Platforms
Microsoft Bot Framework has Bot Connector, a service that allows you to deploy your chatbot on many channels, including Facebook Messenger, Skype, Teams, Slack, and Telegram.
Natural Language Understanding
Microsoft created LUIS ( Language Understanding Intelligent Service ) to provide its natural language processing service from Bot Builder and for its personal assistant, Cortana. As a distinctive point, LUIS allows the bots you make to take advantage of resources from a massive library of NLP knowledge.
Best Chatbot Development Framework: Dialogflow
It is Google’s natural language understanding and processing service, with fewer tools than its Microsoft competitor, but that is not always necessarily a bad thing; Dialogflow is lighter and simpler and gives you just what you need:
Development Tools
Dialogflow has a multi-language SDK, multi-language support, and online code editing. In addition, it offers two very useful APIs:
Detect Intent API to query the user’s intention in a text from any external medium.
Agent API to dynamically change your agent, being able to create intentions at your convenience without having to use the web interface.
You can also host your bot on Google Cloud and expand its functionality by taking advantage of this platform’s tools. For example, you can use AutoML to load a dataset of conversations and have your chatbot learn from them.
An important point to note here is Chatbase. Google is already an expert in web and user analysis thanks to its Google Analytics platform and Chatbase. It provides similar functionality and visibility but for chatbots, providing information on how, when, and who is using your chatbot.
Deployment on Messaging Platforms
With the integrations function, you can deploy your chatbot on many platforms like its Microsoft competitor. Still, the most remarkable thing about Dialogflow in this aspect is that it allows you to turn your chatbot into a voice bot by integrating it with Google Assistant. You can also export the model of your bot to be compatible with Alexa, and although this last option could be better, it can save you a lot of work when making a cross-platform chatbot.
Only using Dialogflow can you make a chatbot that works on the leading messaging platforms on one of the main voice platforms, making it easier to develop your Alexa skill.
Natural Language Understanding
That is the central part of Dialogflow, its natural language understanding service is simple to use, mainly because of how simple and intuitive its interface is; creating a conversation is very fast, and there are many default options that you can reuse. An exciting tool it provides is the Knowledge Connector, which allows your chatbot to scan documents and articles to give automated responses. However, this option only works on bots in English now.
Best Chatbot Development Framework: Amazon Lex
Lex is Amazon’s solution to compete in the chatbot sector; despite being the market leader in voice bots with Alexa, having a service for text platforms is very important not to be left behind.
Development Tools
Bots, developed with Lex, integrate with the Alexa Skill Kit (ASK), seamlessly. In addition, you can export your schema directly to ASK, creating a version of your bot that can communicate via voice without any additional development steps. Plus, there’s an SDK in many different programming languages and tons of tutorials, courses, and webinars provided by Amazon for free.
Developers can use the AWS Management Console to access Lex and create store and host bots in the Amazon cloud with Amazon Lambda effortlessly and conveniently.
Deployment on Messaging Platforms
Amazon Lex allows you to deploy a chatbot on fewer platforms than its competitors; the two most notable are Facebook Messenger and Slack, but voice capabilities stand out the most. For example, a bot built with Lex can easily integrate with Alexa, the most popular voice assistant (Alexa maintains a three-to-one market share advantage against Google Home, the closest leading competitor). That allows developers to create bots that can automatically process voice or text input interchangeably.
Natural Language Understanding
Amazon Lex’s interface for creating dialogs is more fundamental than Dialogflow and Bot Framework and has fewer tools, but it is fully functional and easier to use for beginners.
Final Thoughts
These three chatbot development frameworks cover most of the needs when developing a chatbot for small business:
If you belong to a large corporation, you need a complete and robust chatbot solution. Of course, your primary target is text messaging platforms; then without a doubt, the best option is Microsoft’s Bot Framework.
If you prefer a lighter but highly functional service and are more oriented towards a multiplatform chatbot with text and voice, your best option is Dialogflow.
There’s another situation where you don’t want to complicate the development too much and you need only the primary natural language understanding tools. If you are looking for the most commercial messaging platforms, both text (Facebook Messenger) and voice (Alexa), your best option is undoubtedly Amazon Lex.
The ecosystem of chatbots does not stop evolving and is constantly changing. There are more and more services and solutions that facilitate its development, and there are many more platforms and frameworks on the market.
Some of these include:
- IBM Watson
- Pandorabots
- Wit.ai
- Botsify
- SAP Conversational AI
- Botfuel
- Rasa
So if you are wondering how to build a chatbot, come to us. We are a Software Development company in the USA dedicated to delivering robust, user-friendly, and affordable chatbot development services to small businesses, startups, and large enterprises. It’s been ten years since we started. With our chatbot development solutions, you can meet any business requirement. So if you are a restaurant business, looking to develop your restaurant website’s Chatbot feature, fill out our form and we will get back to you.
FAQs
What is a Chatbot Development Framework?
Chatbot development frameworks feature a set of coded functions and elements that can speed up the development of bots. With the help of these frameworks, developers can create bots that understand natural language, use speech, answer questions, etc.
Why Use a Chatbot Development Framework?
Chatbot development frameworks help developers create bots and define their behavior quickly. Using a framework can reduce the manual work in a chatbot development process.
What Are the Best Chatbot Development Frameworks To Consider In 2023?
Numerous chatbot development frameworks are popular among developers. These include Dialogflow, Microsoft Bot Framework, Rasa, IBM Watson Assistant, and Amazon Lex.
How do I Choose the Best Chatbot Development Framework for My Needs?
You can choose the best chatbot development frameworks by considering several factors: the programming language, the type of chatbot you want to build, community support, integration capabilities, cost, and scalability.
How do I Get Started with A Chatbot Development Framework?
Creating chatbots is easy if you choose the proper chatbot development frameworks. There are several online bot development tools that you can use for free.
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