Differences between AzureBot vs (deprecated) Channels registration for non-Azure hosted bots

Question

The now deprecated Channel Registration for a bot has been replaced with the AzureBot resource. Given a non-Azure hosted bot (built with third party tools - in my particular case botkit) which integrates with the Bot Framework via https://github.com/howdyai/botkit/blob/main/packages/docs/core.md#using-bot-framework-channels, is this the right bot registration to use in order to use the Bot Service as a messaging service? In particular, I'm interested in using the web chat channel at least. Please do not point me to documentation that relies on the deprecated Channels Registration; the point here is to know whether anything is expected to break for this type of bot when using an AzureBot registration/resource instead.

Answer 1

@PatriciaG Thanks for the question. If the bot is hosted elsewhere, you can also make it available in Azure and connect it to the supported channels. You supply the web address where your bot is hosted. You only need to register a bot if it is not hosted in Azure. Bots created using Azure CLI are already registered with the Azure Bot Service. Web App Bot and Bot Channels Registration are deprecated but existing resources will continue to work. You should use Azure Bot, instead.