Text messaging with Ruby on Rails

rubyonrails-talk
1

I want to create a text messaging system with my RoR web site. Anybody know of any good plug-ins or gems?

I found this which is about 6 cents per text message: http://www.lukeredpath.co.uk/2007/8/29/sending-sms-messages-from-your-rails-application

Anything else out there that is reliable?

Thanks Chirag

2

Hi there, I'm the author of the Ruby Clickatell gem. There are plenty of SMS gateways out there; I chose Clickatell because they are one of the bigger gateways who provide services for plenty of big names (BBC, CNN etc.). There rates aren't too bad. You might be able to find one thats a bit cheaper I guess, but not that much. Remember that if you buy credits in bulk you'll get a better rate.

Cheers Luke

3

Matthew, Thanks everyone including you for the great feedback! What do you mean by "charged" and "uncharged"? And also are these gateways (MXTelecom and Quinsy) good only in Europe? We're based in the States. Chirag

4

You don't need any API or framework to send sms messages. All you have to do is send an email to the person's phone and the carrier's gateway will convert it to an SMS message. It works almost instantly. Eg.

#{10_digit_number_@#{carrier_gateway}

Here's a cingular/att example:

5555555555@txt.att.net

You just have to serach google for the list gateways for the other carriers...