3 Different Flavors For Building Chatbots With Microsoft
December 1st, 2019Microsoft now offers a chatbot building tool for everyone. At Ignite 2019, two new tools were announced alongside the existing SDK. Here's how they compare.
Power Virtual Agent — no code
Built for business users. An online application with a clean GUI, pre-built topics, and no code required. It supports topic and entity recognition, Power Automate integration, human handover, and easy multi-channel deployment. The trade-off: no LUIS integration (entities must be asked for rather than recognised), no QnA Maker support, no language generation, no versioning, and no debugging.
Bot Framework Composer — low code
The missing link for Microsoft Bot Framework. A visual dialog builder that integrates LUIS and QnA Maker training directly in the tool. It's fully open-source, so you can white-label it or build custom connectors. Having coding skills helps for extra features, but it's not required for core functionality. The tool is linked to version control, though multi-person collaboration can be tricky.
Bot Framework SDK — full flexibility
The highly adaptable SDK (v4.6+), available for C#, Java, Node.js, and Python. The sky is the limit: write your own integrations, use Adaptive Dialogs for context-switching mid-conversation, debug line by line in your IDE, and collaborate with other developers via version control. The learning curve is steep, but it gives full control. Start with Power Virtual Agent for simple bots. Move to Composer or SDK when you need more intelligence and flexibility.
Explore more
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