Just an anecdotal single data point:

I've tried the esim.me and the jmp offerings in the same set of phones.

esim.me was generally quite glitchy and ultimately just stopped working. The requirement of having an esim.me account also just rubbed me the wrong way.

jmp has been a seamless experience so far.

I also bought an esim.me card a while ago before they started to jack up the prices. It worked one or two times, but stopped working after.

I ordered a 5ber yesterday, and waiting for it to arrive.

Also a +1 for JMP. not glitch free, but I think the glitches were in me, and in the eSim provider. The tool(s) do what they say on the (virtual) box.

+1 jmp a bit weird interface but no artificial restrictions like esimme

Which one is the best of these? Do they work in every country? I can't tell if the do some internet-connected magic or if they just program the SIM so that it appears like a bog-standard SIM to the phone.

I use an esim.me card in my phone and once you program the card with the esim.me app, it shows up as a normal physical sim card on the phone with whatever plan the esim was for. I believe you can even move it to another device and it will still show up with the same plan, though I haven't tried that.

The only issue I've had with it is that some esim provider apps refuse to work on a phone that doesn't have esim capabilities, and since the phone sees the card as a normal sim card, the apps don't work. I assume that will be an issue for any of these cards. Not a huge issue though, most esim apps/websites will still let you get the QR code or download the profile even if your phone doesn't natively support esim, and you just enter that into the esim.me app to program the card.

That's great to know, thanks!

I've personally never tried since my phone supports e-sim but people on the internet report good findings with the 5ber card (note that you need the "Ultra" card for iPhone, the other ones are android only).

Thank you!