Top all-time · #46
Twilio
Company blog · twilio.com/blogprogrammingweb
Twilio is the company blog at twilio.com, writing about programming and web. Since 2009, 632 different Hacker News readers have linked it 1,146 times, most often “Twilio translates phone calls into HTTP requests”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-30, and you can follow it by feed.
Rarely recommended · 1 of 40 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN commenters link Twilio's blog and docs for developer tutorials such as async/await and WebRTC video, and for the CEO's post on how phone-call authentication works. Many links are to product pages and job listings.
- Recommended for · 1 comments
- Called a nice post by the Twilio CEO that walks through the history of the phone system and how it never considered bad actors, and what is being done now.1
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 40 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Build amazing customer experiences on the Twilio platform with APIs for SMS, RCS, voice, and email, plus conversational AI for smarter engagement, and identity verification for trust.
Most-linked posts?
- Twilio translates phone calls into HTTP requests16 people · 16 mentions · first linked 2009-02-27
- Twilio Launches Programmable SIM Cards10 people · 10 mentions · first linked 2016-05-24
- /company/jobs8 people · 12 mentions · first linked 2009-12-06
- Phone Validator API to Check Numbers and Look Up Carriers8 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2015-04-04
- Signal Conference Livestream on Twilio.com7 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2013-10-30
- /7 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2010-03-18
- Discovering Issues in HTTP/2 with Chaos Testing6 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2017-10-27
- /faq/international6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2010-09-14
- TwilioQuest – A RPG game to help learn JavaScript6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2019-03-09
- Twilio Studio6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2017-09-19
What Hacker News says?
Seconding andOTP[1] or Aegis,[2] if you're looking for an Android app that only handles OTP authentication. Both of these apps allow file-based import/export so that you can back up your codes and restore them elsewhere, no proprietary cloud service needed. [1] https://github.com/andOTP/andOTP [2] https://getaegis.app/ I'm not impressed with Authy's privacy policy, especially this part which mirrors the Google issue…
Comment linking /legal/privacy/authy
on “Ask HN: Gmail account security”Submitted HTTP headers for the responsible developer as a story · 887 points
HN discussionThanks! I'm using Twilio's Programmable Video API https://www.twilio.com/docs/video so there is a cost, but it's not a pre-provisioned service so it's manageable.
Comment linking /docs/video
on “Ask HN: What's your quarantine side project?”Submitted Google Spreadsheets and Python as a story · 811 points
HN discussionI forgot to mention this earlier, but you can also proxy outbound calls through Twilio: https://www.twilio.com/blog/make-receive-calls-twilio-number...
Comment linking /blog/make-receive-calls-twilio-number-using-studio
on “533M Facebook users' phone numbers and personal data have been leaked online”Submitted Twilio to Acquire Sendgrid as a story · 633 points
HN discussionCaller ID is available via Twilio here: https://www.twilio.com/lookup Unlisted users might be able to present any data they please here: https://www.listyourself.net/ListYourself/listing.jsp
Comment linking /lookup
on “US telcos appear to be selling non-anonymized access to consumer telephone data”Submitted Twilio releases open source video conferencing apps for iOS, Android and web as a story · 583 points
HN discussionYup - good call. I thought this was a nice post by the Twilio CEO last year: https://www.twilio.com/blog/your-phone-your-call-eliminating... Basically, he walks through the history of the phone system and how it never really considered bad actors, and then what they are working on now and what it'll take to deploy it.
Comment linking /blog/your-phone-your-call-eliminating-robocalls
on “FCC will require phone carriers to authenticate calls by June 2021 [pdf]”Submitted Twilio Super SIM as a story · 461 points
HN discussionThe 5 times part is surely a joke, but not naming a number is like HN-promulgated salary negotiation 101 http://www.kalzumeus.com/2012/01/23/salary-negotiation/ https://www.twilio.com/blog/2016/02/patrick-mckenzie-on-sala... Definitely would be good if someone wrote a counter-response to this prevailing meme
Comment linking /blog/2016/02/patrick-mckenzie-on-salary-negotiation-job-hunting.html
on “Why I Don’t Talk to Google Recruiters”Submitted How I Used Twilio, Python and Google to Automate My Wedding as a story · 425 points
HN discussionYes. https://www.twilio.com/learn/call-and-text-marketing/what-is...
Comment linking /learn/call-and-text-marketing/what-is-rcs-messaging
on ““It’s time for Apple to fix texting””Submitted What Developers Should Know About Job Searching and Negotiation as a story · 420 points
HN discussionIt's mainly an issue with infrastructure and syncing a 2fa code to a specific phone or app. Sending a push notification requires GA to register for push notifications with a server that has the Apple APNS certificate or firebase key. Google would likely have to run this central server and provide a portal/cloud console API for developers to register for sending these push notifications. Authy already does this, prov…
Comment linking /authy/pricing
on “Google: Security Keys Neutralized Employee Phishing”Submitted HTML attributes to improve your users' two factor authentication experience as a story · 357 points
HN discussionWhatsapp is opening it's biz API [0], hence founders are publicly speaking against it [1]. If you are big you get it first indeed. [0]: https://www.twilio.com/whatsapp [1]: https://techcrunch.com/2018/09/26/whatsapp-founder-brian-act...
Comment linking /whatsapp
on “Show HN: 1MB – Free and easy static website hosting and database”Submitted Zsh Tricks to Blow Your Mind as a story · 348 points
HN discussionTwilio Client ( https://www.twilio.com/webrtc ) does this through just JavaScript and webrtc, using Twilio as the bridge. granted you need to wire up to the JavaScript, but it's fairly simple.
Comment linking /webrtc
on “Firefox Hello”Submitted Build a burner phone with Twilio and Kotlin as a story · 312 points
HN discussionAs for STUN/TURN being painful, Twilio recently released a STUN/TURN service platform: https://www.twilio.com/stun-turn . At least makes things somewhat simpler.
Comment linking /stun-turn
on “Firefox Hello”Submitted SQLite or PostgreSQL? It's Complicated as a story · 297 points
HN discussionTo give an example of the cost, Plivo[0]: Make call: $0.0065/min Recieve call: $0.0025/min Twilio[1] Make call: $0.0045/min Recieve call: $0.0020/min Flworoute[2] Make call: $0.00833/min Recieve call: $0.0050/min So double to triple the cost from some providers for just this feature sounds very expensive. But perhaps with large commercial pricing this difference shrinks. [0] https://www.plivo.com/sip-trunking/pricin…
Comment linking /sip-trunking/pricing
on “Say goodbye to hold music”Submitted Verified by Twilio as a story · 291 points
HN discussionto be clear they are not able to "bypass" TOTP or mobile-app-based MFA in the way security folks think of that term. They were able to bypass humans[1], which are often the weakest link in security related matters. [1]: "Twilio became aware of unauthorized access to information related to a limited number of Twilio customer accounts through a sophisticated social engineering attack designed to steal employee credent…
Comment linking /blog/august-2022-social-engineering-attack
on “Twilio incident: What Signal users need to know”Submitted Why Twilio Segment moved from microservices back to a monolith as a story · 280 points
HN discussionI'm not sure what John is using, but they have a very simple example in their documentation. Go here and then click on "twilio-cli" in the right code type selector: https://www.twilio.com/docs/sms/send-messages
Comment linking /docs/sms/send-messages
on “Interview with CEO of rsync.net: “no firewalls and no routers””Submitted Eliminating Robocalls as a story · 280 points
HN discussionTwilio | San Francisco, Mountain View & ..| Full-Time | ONSITE & few REMOTE positions | Multiple Positions | H1-B's OK | https://www.twilio.com/ Twilio makes communications easy and powerful. With Twilio's platform, businesses can make communications relevant and contextual by embedding real-time communication and authentication capabilities directly into their software applications. Twilio gives businesses the abil…
Comment linking /company/jobs
on “Ask HN: Who is hiring? (October 2016)”Submitted How I taught my dog to text me selfies as a story · 278 points
HN discussion
