03 When to use Dialogflow ES

If you are deciding between Dialogflow ES and Dialogflow CX, here are some rules of thumb you can use.

I recommend using Dialogflow ES in the following cases.

You are building a large FAQ chatbot

A large FAQ chatbot is not likely to answer follow up questions. Usually these provide links to other resources etc.

In fact, if your chatbot can benefit from my tool which allows you to type your training phrases into a spreadsheet and bulk convert them into a Dialogflow agent ZIP file, you should just use Dialogflow ES.

Your bot does not have complex multi-turn conversations

If you are using a complex follow up intent tree, or you are using slot filling in your chatbot, the odds are pretty high that you would be better off using Dialogflow CX.

You are on a limited budget

If you are on a tight budget, Dialogflow ES is easily the better choice. It has a very generous free tier.

But you need to balance this with the fact that it is harder to use ES to construct complex conversation flows as I have mentioned before.

You need to integrate your bot with external apps and services

Dialogflow ES has been around for much longer than CX. As a result, you will find that there are more external apps and services which integrate with Dialogflow ES but do not integrate with Dialogflow CX.

For example, Zoho SalesIQ has a 1-click integration with Dialogflow ES but does not (yet) have a 1-click integration with Dialogflow CX.

Note: This is my old website and is in maintenance mode. I am publishing new articles only on my new website. 

If you are not sure where to start on my new website, I recommend the following article:

Is Dialogflow still relevant in the era of Large Language Models?