• Internet usage has dramatically increased over the last few years, and today we hardly imagine our lives without it. With approximately 1.8 billion websites registered online as of 2021, it can be challenging to keep customers. Therefore, developers employ strategies to keep users informed; one of them is text messaging integration.

• Because of the challenging learning curve, extensive community support, open-source nature, and many other factors, PHP is one of the preferred choices for server-side applications. Three methods are described in this article for sending SMS from your PHP web application. You must choose the approach that best suits you after I outline the advantages and disadvantages of each.

• Using SMTP will be covered in general detail in this article.for multi-channel notification services, SMS API, and SMS. After that, we'll get technical as I lay out the options available, explain how to incorporate them into your application, and then we'll talk about the benefits and drawbacks of each approach.

1. SMTP usage

The most popular method for sending emails that are created by a system is called Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP). Different libraries offer SMTP services based on the backend programming language. Using PHPMailer and SwiftMailer for PHP apps, for example, and Nodemailer for Node.js applications

However, the focus of this tutorial is on how to send SMS texts. I will be using 3rd party application to act as the middleman between the Mail server and the mobile phone.

Send SMS PHP Using SMTP

The above illustration shows a 2-way communication line in The blue arrow illustrates how an SMS is received from the mobile network and sent to an email client (like Outlook) via an email server using the SMTP protocol. Of course, you may disregard the blue arrows if all you're interested in is email forwarding.

It calls for two things:

• The phone number you're looking for.

• Name of Carrier (Many can be found through this list).

• For the majority of carriers, the conventional procedure is as follows: (May not be applicable to all nations.)

You don't need PHP if all you need to do is send an SMS. Assume, for instance, that your phone number is 5555551234 and that Verizon Wireless Network is your network provider (A large network provider in US and Canada). Then You can send the message by entering 5555551234@vtext.com in your email client. The recipient of the text message is +1 (555) 555-1234.

PHPMailer or PHP's mail function can be used to achieve the same using PHP. I'm going to use PHP's mail function as an example (You can check the documentation for more details). The function's signature is as follows:

1 bool mail (strings "$to," "$subject," "$message," "$additional headers," "$additional parameters")

Now run the edit function signature and add it to our PHP code:

1\s2\s3

This is the simplest way, but when you receive the text message in the message header, it will display the message is from Gmail. You can go with an alternate SMS Gateway

such as Ozeki SMS Gateway to prevent that.

Benefits of sending SMS using SMTP

• Sending text messages using your email client is the main benefit of using an SMTP to SMS service.

•  It won't take more than 10 minutes to implement and only requires a small amount of coding.

Cons of Sending SMS Using SMTP

• You must be aware of the carrier (the domain name of the wireless network) connected to the mobile number (Many can be found through this list). Second, when sending the message, you should be cautious about how long it is. Your message can be lost or split into many texts if you go over the character limit, which is around 55.

• Additionally, SMPT involves back-and-forth message sending, which slows down the operation.

• Messages must pass through the SMS gateway in this situation. Therefore, it is possible for deliveries to fail.

• Utilising SMS API

Using an API, send SMS with PHP.

• You can incorporate text messages into your software programme using the SMS API. It can also be used for two-way communication. Using this, you can rapidly notify customers and deliver information to them while keeping your firm operational around-the-clock.

• There are numerous SMS API vendors available. Examples include MessageBird, Twilio, and Nexmo. I'll take into account the MessageBird API for the tutorial's PHP web application. In order to begin, you must:

• Create a free account at MessageBird. When you create an account, please provide your phone number (It offers you ten options).

• Two API keys are available in the developer section. One is used for testing and the other is put to use.

3. We must install a package in order to communicate with the MessageBird API provider.

require messagebird/php-rest-api in composer

4. You can include an HTML form to collect the recipient's phone number and email, but because our attention is on the backend, I will offer it manually.

1\s2\s3\s4\s5\s6\s7\s8\s9\s10\s11

'USE YOUR PHONE REGISTERED WITH MESSAGEBIRD HERE' as the originator; Set the SMS message's sender in the code. The reply from the API will be stored in this response object. $message->recipients = [$recipient]; $message->body = $sms; $response = $messageBird->messages->create($message);

echo $e; catch(Exception $e)?>

You can use the Live API key to obtain the actual message after testing the code with the Test API key. To verify You can print the $responce object, which has the API response, to see the message's delivery status.

Benefits of SMS API usage

• It's simple to incorporate any SMS API into your application. Implementation requires very little coding, and the services offer comprehensive usage and API documentation.

•  Some also offer added features like statistics and click-through rate. In addition, it is quicker than the SMTP to SMS approach.

Cons of utilising SMS API

• The cost varies depending on what you select and how many text messages you wish to send, and all API providers get compensated.

• If your app has to send out alerts, using an SMS API rather than a multi-channel notifications provider (which I cover below) has another drawback.For instance, you would need to integrate SMS, chat tools like Slack and WhatsApp independently, as well as mobile and web push. You must determine the value of all the additional time and effort.

3. Making use of the Multi-Channel Notification API

Multi-channel notification services (MNS), as the name suggests, use a standardised API to send alerts across a variety of channels (such as emails, text messages, push notifications, WhatsApp, Slack, etc.). Courier is made to accomplish that. It has a uniform API to notify users of all the channels, and it has real-time logs and analytics where you can monitor the performance of all the channels.

Send SMS Using PHP

Even though this tutorial is about sending text messages, there are some factors we need to take into consideration when we However, this can scale into other notification channels if new requirements arise, as demonstrated in the example above.

You must first visit the website, register, and complete the initial setup.

Log in with your Gmail address.

• Name the workspace.

• Choose SMS

• Your choice of backend programming language

• Choose an SMS provider (I select MessageBird)

• Give MessageBird's associated number, the Access Key, and then Set up the supplier (If you use windows, run the given snippet in your PowerShell).

• If you completed the basic setup steps satisfactorily, you were forwarded to the next window.

• Using PHP, send SMS notifications

2. After creating a new notification, you can see a preview of how it will look on the recipient's mobile device.

3. Construct a courier SDK:

Composer must use courier or try courier

Courier will produce the PHP code on its own for your notification. It can be copied and pasted using the Send tab. It will seem as follows:

1\s2\s3\s4\s5\s6\s7\s8\s9\s10\s11\s12\s13\s14\s15\s16\s17\s18

sendEnhancedNotification(\s (object) (object) [\s 'to' => ['phone number'] = "RECIPIENT NUMBER HERE", ['template'] = "F3Q0EWXH5W4S70H4CS99695STCYX", ['data'] = echo($result->requestId);?> ['recipientName' => "Indrajith", ], ]);

The queued, dispatched, delivered, opened, clicked, and undeliverable statuses of the SMS message can be seen in the Logs section of the Courier dashboard. If there are any mistakes in the delivery pipeline, the courier will also let you know when they happened.

Benefits of utilising multichannel alerting systems

Making your own decisions is crucial in today's software scalability This scalability is provided by multi-channel notification services, which also keep your codebase tidy. This is a huge bonus because business needs and technological advancements are constantly evolving.

Second, drag-and-drop template builders are accessible through sites like Courier, which can save you a tonne of time. Real-time logs and analytics also assist firms in monitoring and evaluating performance.

Use of multi-channel notification services has drawbacks

The drawbacks of multi-channel notification services are comparable to those covered in the SMS APIs discussion. Each benefit has a corresponding expense (But in Courier, they have free plans up to 10000 notifications per month). Additionally, there is once more outside interference. You rely on a third-party service to send notifications all across the channels.

Conclusion:

This article discussed Three ways are available in a PHP web application to send text messages. The advantages and disadvantages of SMTP to SMS, SMS API, and multi-channel notification services have been covered, and you may choose the approach to take based on your time and financial constraints.