Bird vs Bandwidth for Voice
Bird connects your PBX or AI voice runtime over SIP trunks while keeping IVR call sequences, recordings, and call logs in the same workspace as your SMS, WhatsApp, and email channels.
Drag an icon onto the dots. Use arrow keys to move a focused icon. Press Escape to cancel a drag.
Trusted by engineering and product teams
shipping at global scale.
How Bird and Bandwidth compare across voice workflows
Compare how each provider connects your SIP equipment, routes incoming calls, and integrates with AI voice runtimes.
| Capability | Bird | Bandwidth |
|---|---|---|
| SIP connection | Connect your PBX, contact center, or voice AI media server to a dedicated SIP domain with IP allowlists or digest authentication. | Connect a SIP client through a configured realm and SIP credentials. |
| Inbound routing | Bind each phone number directly to a SIP trunk endpoint or a published IVR call sequence. | Configure prioritized routes and weighted endpoints for incoming calls. |
| AI runtime integration | Bridge inbound and outbound phone calls over SIP to the voice AI runtime that runs your speech model and tools. | Bandwidth's documented Vapi integration uses Bandwidth for SIP telephony and Vapi for the assistant. |
When is Bandwidth a strong choice?
Bandwidth fits teams that already manage calling through its SIP realms, prioritized route tables, and weighted endpoint groups, or follow its documented Vapi SIP setup for external voice assistants.
When should you choose Bird?
Choose Bird when you want SIP trunking, hosted IVR call sequences, and call recordings in the same workspace and API key as your SMS, WhatsApp, and email messaging. You can route numbers to your existing PBX or AI voice server while triggering follow-up texts or emails from the same platform.
Can I keep my existing PBX or AI runtime?
Yes, if your PBX or AI voice server supports standard SIP signaling and compatible media codecs. Point a test trunk at your equipment, configure IP allowlists or digest credentials, and verify inbound dialing, outbound caller ID, two-way audio, and call transfers on a pilot number before moving live traffic.
How should you compare the full cost?
Price the complete call using your real destination countries, inbound and outbound call mix, and average call length. Include monthly phone number rental, per-minute carrier charges for each connected call leg, recording or transcription fees, and the speech and LLM costs from your AI runtime.
What does a careful migration involve?
List your Bandwidth SIP realms, credential sets, inbound route priorities, endpoint weights, phone number assignments, and any Programmable Voice call control before you start moving traffic.
Map inbound and outbound trunks
Create a Bird SIP trunk for your PBX or AI voice runtime, configure IP allowlists or digest credentials, and set your outbound country allowlist and verified caller IDs.
Test a complete call end to end
Assign a test number in Bird and place real inbound and outbound calls to verify two-way audio, keypad input, agent tool calls, transfer handling, and call detail records while Bandwidth still serves production.
Port numbers and cut over traffic
Check number portability for each country, bind imported or newly provisioned numbers to your verified Bird trunk or sequence, and shift outbound traffic in stages.
Questions about Bird and Bandwidth
Can I keep my existing PBX or AI runtime?
Can I keep my current phone numbers?
How do I evaluate call quality before switching?
Should I start self-serve or talk to a Voice specialist?
Prepare the next step
Related resources
Continue with the documentation, guides and examples for this topic.
Talk to our Voice team
Plan your Bandwidth migration.
Review your phone numbers, SIP realms, and inbound routing rules with our team, and validate a complete call flow on Bird before porting live traffic.