If you are running a startup community on Telegram and comparing bots, Botpress has probably come up. It is a open-source builder tool, and depending on what your group actually needs, it might fit or it might fall short. This is an honest, feature-by-feature breakdown so you can decide without the trial and error.
Botpress is an open-source bot builder that needs hosting, coding, and ongoing maintenance. It is a open-source builder tool. For some use cases that is fine. For running a live startup community where members want to participate, share, and stay engaged, it falls short in ways that cost you time and members.
These are the specific limitations that startup communities run into with Botpress:
BotWave was built specifically for Telegram communities, and startup groups get the full toolkit on day one. Here is where it pulls ahead of Botpress.
Here is what a startup community actually does with BotWave on a normal day:
| Capability | BotWave | Botpress |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly cost | Free forever | Paid tiers required |
| Per message fees | $0 | Yes |
| 24h reply window | No limit | Restricted |
| Commands | 200+ | Limited |
| Group size | 200,000 | Capped lower |
| Inline games | Yes | No |
| AI assistant | Built in | Limited |
| Crypto tracking | Yes | No |
| Media downloads | 8 platforms | No |
| Trust scores | Yes | No |
| Karma and levels | Yes | No |
| Mini app dashboard | Yes | No |
Pricing is where most startup communities make the switch. Botpress charges for the part it does, and the cost scales with activity. BotWave does not.
| Usage | BotWave | Botpress |
|---|---|---|
| 1,000 msgs/day | $0 | $5 to $80/day |
| 10,000 msgs/day | $0 | $50 to $800/day |
| Hosting | $0 | Self host or paid |
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
/notes | Share pitch notes and feedback |
/trust | Check an investor's reputation |
/welcome | Greet new members with community links |
/antiraid | Protect the group during launches |
Switching from Botpress to BotWave takes about two minutes. Here is exactly what happens when you migrate a startup group.
Consider a startup community with 2,000 members that moved from Botpress to BotWave. Here is what changed.
Before the switch, the group was running {comp} for its one feature and two or three other bots for the rest. Admins spent more time managing bots than managing the community. Spam slipped through, engagement was flat, and new members left within a week.
After adding BotWave, the admins turned on welcome, captcha, karma, and polls in the setup wizard. Within three days, spam dropped to near zero because captcha blocked bot accounts at the door. Karma gave regular contributors a visible reputation, and the leaderboard created a light competitive loop that pulled lurkers into the conversation.
The AI assistant handled questions that admins used to answer manually. Reminders pinged the group before events, and the notes module replaced a cluttered pinned-messages chain. The group went from five bots to one, admin workload dropped, and daily active members climbed.
The admin team now spends zero time on bot maintenance and all of their time on the community itself. That is the difference between a tool that does one thing and a platform that runs the whole group.
Here is the honest summary of why startup communities switch from Botpress to BotWave.
Go with Botpress if its one strength is all you will ever need. Go with BotWave if you want your startup community to actually grow without juggling five tools.
Yes. /notes pins pitch material and /trust scores investors so founders know who's real.
Yes. /antiraid blocks coordinated attacks during announcements.
Yes, completely free with no per-message fees, unlike enterprise platforms.
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