What is the best alternative to Beejive?

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score 12 · Answer 1

Kik

Top Pro

Push is quick

Push notifications are extremely quick. See More

Top Con

Not for young people

Kik has a lot of sexual predators and can be dangerous for kids. See More

Top Pro

Cross-platform

Support for iOS, Android, and Blackberry. See More

Top Pro

Built-in browser

Kik is the first messenger with a built-in browser. See More

Top Pro

Easy to use interface

12 1

score 13 · Answer 2

Verbs

Top Pro

View downloaded Office and iWork documents right within the app

With support for CloudApp and Droplr, you can send Photos and view PDFs, Office and iWork documents right within Verbs. See More

Top Con

Notable client support exceptions

IM/MobileMe MSN/Windows Live Yahoo! Facebook Jabber ICQ See More

Top Pro

Minimalist approach and a beautiful interface

Verbs distinguishes itself from the competition with a minimalist approach to IM and a beautiful interface. See More

Top Pro

Use CloudApp and Droplr to send Photos

With support for CloudApp and Droplr, you can send Photos and view PDFs, Office and iWork documents right within Verbs. See More

Top Pro

Client Support

AIM Google Talk Facebook MobileMe See More

Top Pro

Finds and displays your AIM and Gtalk buddies linked in AddressBook

See your Facebook friends, your AIM buddies and your Google contacts in a unified buddy list See More

Top Pro

Send chat logs via email

Top Pro

Mark links in received messages to read later via Instapaper

See All Experiences

13 2

score 27 · Answer 3

IMO

Top Con

No support for third-party instant messaging networks

On March 3, 2014, IMO will start discontinuing support for all third-party instant messaging networks. See More

Top Pro

Beautiful User Interface

Although IMO has a comparable, and in some cases superior, feature set when compared to the competition its key selling point is its interface. From LifeHacker when it won "Best IM Client": Signing on, navigating chats by tapping the tabs at the bottom, searching for buddies, and virtually any other operation is easy to find and use. The app, itself, is very quick. Even sending a voice IM, if you don't feel like typing, is responsive and sends quickly. Everything imo does it does well, but it's excellent navigation really makes it top notch. IMO also has a fully functional website that you can use for chat while on your desktop or laptop. This really puts IMO ahead of the competition as you can use the same system on all your devices so you don't have to deal with overlapping notifications etc. (Note: IM+ also has this feature) It should also be noted that it has the highest rating in the App Store due to both the UI and its stability. See More

Top Pro

Easy to switch between conversations with tabs

Tabbed chats make it easy to switch between conversations See More

Top Pro

Lists and chat histories are searchable

Both your buddy lists and chat histories are searchable. See More

Top Pro

Accounts can be linked so you don't have to sign in to several accounts

Top Pro

Push notifications

Top Pro

Video call support

Top Pro

Concurrent sessions

Concurrent sessions allow you to be logged in on your desktop while also being logged in on your phone. See More

Top Pro

Chat groups

See All Experiences

27 4

score 40 · Answer 4

Threema

Top Pro

Encrypted communication

Provides complete end-to-end encryption. See More

Top Con

Not free

Unlike many other options Threema is not free as it costs $1.99 for the app. See More

Top Pro

Registration without phone number

Registration is handled by random generated IDs. No phone number needed. See More

Top Con

Single device only

You cannot use multiple devices to send messages. However, it does have message mirroring on a web client. See More

Top Pro

Company behind Threema is based in Switzerland

Top Con

No cloud sync

E2E encryption means no cloud syncing of messages. See More

Top Pro

Servers in Switzerland

Privacy laws protect the data Threema has. See More

Top Pro

Supports encrypted group chats

Top Pro

Group chat polls

Top Pro

Provides a web client

You can control and message with friends via Threema Web, the official web client for Threema. See More

Top Pro

Ability to send pics and videos

Threema supports sending media messages such as video, pics and even voice messages. See More

Specs

Platforms:Android / iOS / WP

Publisher:Threema GmbH

File Size:15M

Required Android Version:4.0 and up

See All Specs

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40 12

score 797 · Answer 5

Telegram

Top Pro

Free and convenient large file sharing

Copy/paste videos, gifs, images, geolocation, documents, and even executable files. Drag over files for practically any time up to 1.5GB in size. Images can be compressed, too. See More

Top Con

Not fully open source

Telegram has an open API and protocol free for everyone, but the backend software is not open source. Therefore 100% privacy can not be evaluated. See More

Top Pro

Free of cost

The application is available free of cost. See More

Top Con

Can only be used with a phone number

It is not possible to activate and use Telegram by mail etc. You need a phone number. See More

Top Pro

Privacy focused

In addition to the end-to-end encryption that provides privacy to communications, the app also includes self destructing timers for chats, and the ability to permanently delete messages, yours and theirs, from your device. See More

Top Con

Only "Secret Chat" messages are encrypted end to end

The only way to get end-to-end encryption (client-client) using Telegram is to use the Secret Chat function, anything through the service is server-client encrypted. Also secret chat is only implemented in the mobile apps, meaning there is no way to encrypt messages end-to-end when using the desktop client or the web browser client. See More

Top Pro

Media messaging

Videos, gifs, images, geolocation, and documents. See More

Top Con

No source code sintax highlighting

Telegram does not have source code syntax highlighting, making it difficult to share code snippets. See More

Top Pro

Channels for one way broadcasting

Broadcasting channels suitable for announcing things. See More

Top Con

"Secret Chat" feature is not available for desktop client

Secret chats with end to end encryption are only available on mobile apps. See More

Top Pro

Beautiful UI

Very customizable with a lot of clean looking options. See More

Top Con

Does not work for visually impaired

Doesn't work for visually impaired. See More

Top Pro

Possible to send photos and videos without compression

Top Con

Does not support spherical 360° photos

Spherical 360° photos becoming more popular these days, but Telegram does not support such format. See More

Top Pro

Supergroups of up to 200,000 people

In Supergroups, anyone along with admins can delete their messages from all sides. A message can be pinned to the top. All of the user's messages can be deleted by an administrator, and they can be banned and reported as well. Supergroups can have a public link (outside of Asia, due to high spam volumes), which is also a username. See More

Top Con

Does not support text messaging

You can NOT make it your default text messaging App. See More

Top Pro

Two-step verification

You can set up an additional password to your account, which can be reset by your email. You don't have to use an email if you do not want to. If you lose access to your email or forget your password, you will be able to reset it via text message if your account is over seven days old and will receive it within a week (in case you recover anything before then). See More

Top Pro

Open source client apps

Client apps are open source, making whole service more trustworthy. See More

Top Pro

Save time with inline bots and link previews

Unfortunately, on the desktop videos don't play, but images are viewable without visiting popular websites like imgur and Instagram. You can play YouTube videos and others within the app, so you don't need to embed code or anything. With inline bots, such as @gif, @pic/bing, @vid/YouTube, etc, you can look things up without leaving the client or chat that you're in. Simply type the name and some keywords and wait for the results to load. See More

Top Pro

Desktop app handles HIDPI

The desktop app has a built in setting to scale the UI of the app up to 200% which allows for those with 4k monitors/screens to use the app without scaling issues. See More

Top Pro

Unlimited storage

Unlimited number of files can be stored forever on the cloud. You can upload files up to 1.5 GB each. See More

Top Pro

@mentions

You can ping people to get their attention by @mentioning them. See More

Top Pro

Multiplatform native client apps

There are native desktop, mobile and web client apps, that are optimized for speed and are light on memory usage. See More

Top Pro

Secure

Telegram uses an open source MTProto encryption protocol that provides complete end-to-end encryption for secret chats. To show off their confidence in the protocol the company behind Telegram has organized $200,000 and $300,000 challenges to break the encryption. So far there have been no winners. See More

Top Pro

Saved messages

You can write messages to yourself. You can write some notes, add links, and see everything across all your devices. See More

Top Pro

Banned in China

Top Pro

Cloud chat keys are kept in different jurisdiction

Even though encryption used for cloud-based storage (e.g. Gmail, Facebook, iCloud) may not be as secure as end-to-end encryption or zero-knowledge storage, Telegram does the most that it can by holding keys to chats in different jurisdictions, requiring intergovernmental cooperation to obtain the keys. This is aside from whatever other security measures have been taken, of course. See More

Top Pro

High quality calls

Uses the latest GPL audio codecs, such as Opus, an adaptative high-quality codec that supersedes AAC at any bitrate. See More

Top Pro

Customer support is within the app

Although it's volunteer based, but still pretty top-notch if available, which it tends to be. See More

Top Pro

Voice and video messages

You can post voice and video messages if you are too lazy to write text messages. See More

Top Pro

Pinned Messages

You can pin messages to the top of groups or supergroups so members will see them when opening the group. See More

Top Pro

Popular in the USA

On SimilarWeb you can see that Telegram is on the top 15 among all communication apps. See More

Top Pro

Self-destruct messages

Messages can be set on a timer. They will disappear after the timer expires. See More

Specs

Platforms:Web, Android, iOS, Windows, Linux, macOS, BSD, Windows phone, UWP

Publisher:Various companies affiliated with Telegram

File Size:1.5 GB

End-to-end encryption:Secret chats

See All Specs

See All Experiences

797 185

score 43 · Answer 6

IM+

Top Pro

Can send encrypted messages

IM+ has the most extensive client support out of any of its competition and is the only app with the ability to send secure, off-the-record messages. See More

Top Pro

Simple user interface

IM+ does the core IM experience incredibly well. The layout is intuitive to use and the very high app store reviews indicate how stable and user friendly the app is. See More

Top Pro

Advanced chat history

Access your messaging history in the app or on the web See More

Top Pro

View Twitter feed

Top Pro

Off-the-Record Messaging (As a paid upgrade)

Top Pro

Group Chats

Skype, MSN, AIM, and ICQ only See More

Top Pro

Photo, voice, video and IM messaging

Top Pro

Web application to chat from your desktop or laptop

Top Pro

Extensive client support

IM+ has the most extensive client support out of any of its competition: Facebook Skype MSN/Live Messenger GTalk Yahoo! AIM/iChat ICQ Twitter Jabber Renren VKontakte Odnoklassniki.Ru Mail.Ru Agent Gadu-Gadu MeinVZ SINA Weibo mig33 Fetion Mamba Yandex IM. See More

See All Experiences

43 19

score 30 · Answer 7

iMessage

Top Con

Not cross-platform

iMessage is not available on anything but Apple devices. See More

Top Pro

Secure end-to-end encryption

Top Con

Slow and unreliable

Top Pro

Cross-platform within Apple ecosystem

iMessage is available on iPhone, iPod, iPad, and Mac. See More

Top Pro

Free and unlimited messages over Wi-Fi and data

Messages clearly indicates whether messages are being sent over iMessage (blue) or SMS (green) where messaging rates apply. iMessages do not count as SMS messages with your carrier, instead they use a negligible amount of data to send over Wi-Fi and cellular data networks. See More

Top Pro

Supports voice messages

Short voice recordings/messages can be quickly sent, and messages can be easily dictated into written messages as well. See More

Top Pro

Clear indicators for message delivery and receipt

The app indicates when messages have been sent, when they have been read, and when someone is typing. See More

Top Pro

Comes pre-installed

No need to download or sign up for a new service See More

Top Pro

Seamlesss switching between SMS messages

Top Pro

Friends don't need to "sign up"

You can just message them using their existing phone number or Apple ID and they will get your message. See More

Top Pro

Clean UI

UI is minimalistic, and clear. And there is a plethora of stuff on the left of text box if you wanna use them. See More

Top Pro

Apps and games for iMessage are available

For example, you can play games like pool or you can show someone a destination to go to . See More

See All Experiences

30 15

score 172 · Answer 8

WhatsApp

Top Pro

Straightforward interface

The interface is very simple, fast and easy to use. You can start using it as soon as the app has been downloaded - it does not require setting anything up or registering. You can communicate with anyone in your contacts list that also uses WhatsApp. Includes useful features like seeing when a contact is currently available or typing. See More

Top Con

Shares meta data with Facebook

WhatsApp shares your messaging meta data with Facebook if you do not opt-out in the settings. If you use the same phone number for WhatsApp and Facebook, the profiles can easily be linked. See https://www.whatsapp.com/faq/en/general/26000016 See More

Top Pro

Widely used

WhatsApp reported 1.5 billion users in 2018. Your friends are most likely already using WhatsApp, so it's easy to get setup. See More

Top Con

Tied to carrier phone number

WhatsApp cannot be used by people without a smart phone with an active cell plan. If your phone is lost or damaged, or if your phone number changes, you cannot get messages sent by friends without them updating your phone number. You cannot send message to them until you are able to get SMS messages at your phone number. See More

Top Pro

Effortlessly builds your contacts by using your phone number as identification

WhatsApp will automatically find all of your contacts currently using Whatsapp and add them to your contacts. This makes it really easy to setup and given that it's the most popular messaging app it's likely that a lot of your contacts are already using it. See More

Top Con

Single device

You cannot use the same WhatsApp account on multiple devices (e.g. a tablet, a PC and a cellphone). The account is tied to the device with the specific cellphone number. Chat history is deleted when you sign in to a new account, unless you have created a backup. See More

Top Pro

Message mirroring on web app

WhatsApp can be used from the desktop via Chrome, Firefox and Opera browsers. Accessing it requires using the Android app to scan the QR code that's presented on web.whatsapp.com. See More

Top Con

Proprietary

Not open source. See More

Top Pro

Signal protocol

Whatsapp uses the state-of-the-art Signal protocol that ensure strong end-to-end encryption. See More

Top Con

Hard to migrate history cross platform

Migrating your chat history from Android to iOS or the other way around is not so simple. In some cases it requires a 3rd party app and in some the only way is to migrate specific chats one by one. See More

Top Pro

One-on-one texts can be encrypted

WhatsApp has implemented end to end encryption for messages sent on it's service. Even WhatsApp has no way to read a users messages. See More

Top Con

No cloud sync

Messages are not stored on WhatsApp server for privacy and security reasons. See More

Top Con

Limitation on shareable file sizes

WhatsApp now allows users to share files of any type, but there is still a 16 MB size limit. See More

Top Con

Web interface uses message mirroring

To use your computer to send messages your phone must be on with a consistent data connection. See More

Specs

Platforms:Android, iOS, Web, Mac, Windows, Windows Phone

Publisher:WhatsApp Inc.

File Size:100 MB

Required Android Version:2.3.3 or above

See All Specs

See All Experiences

172 138

score 2 · Answer 9

Vine Messages

Top Pro

Can communicate outside of Vine

You can send messages to people outside of Vine. See More

Top Con

Can't share images or videos from camera roll

Top Pro

Video tools

Vine can capture a video for you and has a grid to help line up shots. See More

Top Con

No group messaging

Top Pro

Video messages

Videos can be up to six seconds long. See More

Specs

Platforms:Android / iOS / WP

Publisher:Vine Labs

File Size:Varies with device

Required Android Version:Varies with device

See All Specs

2 0

score 6 · Answer 10

GroupMe

Top Pro

Reads receipts

GroupMe has a built in function to read receipts. See More

Top Con

Drains battery fast

GroupMe, in order to have a constant connection which allows for notifications drains the battery of a device quickly, which is not ideal for a messaging app that one needs on time notifications from. See More

Top Pro

Great web client

GroupMe has an excellent web client that can be used to send and receive messages and manage groups from the desktop. See More

Top Pro

IFTTT Integration

Allows sending messages from web services via IFTTT. See More

Top Pro

Integrated calendar

It's possible to add location and time with reminders directly in the GroupMe app. See More

Top Pro

Makes it easy to silence 1 or all groups

GroupMe has settings that allow muting a single group or turn off all GroupMe notifications from within the app. See More

Top Pro

Does not require everyone in the group to have a smartphone

GroupMe can set up a custom phone number which allows people without the App to send and receive messages. This makes it easy to add anyone to messaging. See More

Specs

Platforms:Android iOS WP

Publisher:groupme

File Size:Varies with device

Required Android Version:Varies with device

See All Specs

See All Experiences

6 1

score 15 · Answer 11

StealthChat

Top Con

Many people have difficulty registering the app

Multiple people have reported not being able to receive the activation code required to register the app. See More

Top Pro

Can send self-destructing messages

Messages can be set to self-destruct after a set time. See More

Top Con

Code is not verified

Top Pro

Offers 3 types of encryption

The app claims to be the only communication app that encrypts data in transit, on disk and on screen. Encryption in transit is used to make sure no-one can listen in on your conversations even if the traffic is going through their servers, encryption on disk is used to make sure that even if someone gets ahold of your phone and is capable of extracting your messages from it they won't be able to read them and screen encryption is essentially a lock screen that sets in after a set amount of time used to make prevent "shoulder surfing". See More

Top Con

Poor support

Top Con

Lacks group chat

Top Con

Closed source

No way to verify security practices. See More

Specs

Platforms:Android / iOS

Required Android Version:4.0

End-to-end encryption:Yes

Audio recording:Yes

See All Specs

See All Experiences

15 3

score 1 · Answer 12

Reach

Top Pro

Mass message multiple people at once

Ability to send a single message to multiple people without exposing their contact information to each other. Reach sends individual messages to the group rather than starts a group chat. See More

Top Con

Need to press "Send" button per each recipient

When sending a message to a group, the user must press "Send" button for each recipient. The only work around is to use Google Voice integration for fully automatic mass texting See More

Top Pro

Personalized and Individual conversations in "Group Mode"

When sending a message to a group of people, Reach starts a private conversation in your Messages, Mail or WhatsApp apps respectively for each recipient See More

Top Pro

Reusable Recipient Groups

Improve workflow productivity by creating reusable recipient groups See More

Top Pro

All platforms in one: iMessage, Text/SMS, E-mail, WhatsApp, and Google Voice

Reach does not require the recipient to have Reach installed on their device. Instead it uses the existing messaging apps on the device to send the message to the recipient. See More

Top Pro

Message Templates Feature

Prepare message templates which can be reused. Message templates can have recipients name variable, for example the template "hey {first name}!" will be populated with the recipients first name when the message is sent out See More

Top Pro

Free texting through Google Voice

Reach integrates with Google Voice and allows to send free text messages in the U.S.A and low rates across the globe See More

Top Pro

Fully automated mass texting with free SMS

Using Google Voice integration, Reach is able to send mass texts in a fully automated mode (without the need to press "Send" button for each message) See More

See All Experiences

1 0

score 1 · Answer 13

Nimbuzz Messenger

Top Pro

Regular calls

You can buy Nimbuzz Credit and make calls at a reduced price. See More

Top Pro

Chat rooms

Nimbuzz has public chat rooms that can be created or accessed by anyone. See More

Top Pro

Video, audio and photo sharing

Nimbuzz can share media files. See More

Top Pro

Social messaging integration

Allows talking to GTalk, Yahoo, MSN and Facebook users. See More

Top Pro

Group messages

You can create groups of people to send messages to. See More

Top Pro

Video calls

Nimbuzz can make one-to-one video calls. See More

1 0

score 1 · Answer 14

Allo

Top Pro

Persists history

Your chat history is persisted by default (you can send incognito end-to-end encrypted self-destructing messages instead if you so desire). See More

Top Con

Not yet released (should release in summer 2016)

Top Pro

Allows self-destructing messages

You can send messages that will be removed from both parties after a defined period of time. See More

Top Pro

Allows end-to-end encrypted incognito messages

Top Pro

Assistant

The assistant is a bot that can help book, look up locations, restaurants, set up calendar events, etc. See More

Top Pro

Full quality pictures

1 0

score 14 · Answer 15

Trillian

Top Con

Supports all dead services.

Top Pro

In-house server support

You can set up a dedicated server to hold your communications. Great for businesses that want to build their own infrastructure. See More

Top Pro

Multiple networks in one place

Among them Yahoo!, Facebook, Skype, Google, AIM, ICQ, XMPP, MSN. You can have multiple accounts associated with each service. See More

Top Pro

Group chat

Trillian to Trillian group chat is available. See More

14 5

score 367 · Answer 16

Signal

Top Pro

Provides security and privacy

Signal uses an advanced end to end encryption protocol that provides privacy for every message every time. See More

Top Con

Needs access to your phone number and contacts to work

Top Pro

Free and open source

Signal is free and open source software, enabling anyone to verify its security by auditing the code. It's the only private messenger that uses open source, peer-reviewed cryptographic protocols to keep your messages safe. See More

Top Con

Single device

Signal can only be registered to one mobile device at a time. But you can link Signal to Signal Desktop. See More

Top Pro

SMS/MMS support

Signal can be your default SMS/MMS text messenger. Encryption is not possible when sending SMS to your contacts, however. See More

Top Con

Unreliable notifications

Sometimes messages won't be received if the Signal app has been closed for a long time or hasn't been opened after booting the device. See More

Top Pro

Supports encrypted group chats

Top Con

Servers hosted in the US

A security risk due to National Security letters, which require giving up data to the US state, and making it illegal to disclose that. See More

Top Pro

Supports sharing of various different media types

Signal supports: emoji, pictures, videos, audio, contacts, any location and GIF. See More

Top Con

If SMS/MMS imported, other apps can't read SMS

For those using Join, Pushbullet, or similar apps to send and receive SMS/MMS from web or desktop, putting your SMS in Signal somehow breaks this functionally. The dev is aware but plans to remedy the situation have not been named a priority See More

Top Pro

Recommended by Edward Snowden

Edward Snowden uses this messenger and recommends it to everyone who is concerned about his privacy. See More

Top Con

Uses message mirroring

Top Pro

Message mirroring on Signal Desktop

Signal Desktop is a Chrome extension that allows you to mirror messages from your phone, including replying. See More

Top Pro

You can easily view all media exchanged

You can easily view all media shared in the chat without scrolling back to when it was shared. See More

Top Pro

Note to Self feature

Allows you to "send: messages to yourself and sync to desktop so you can use Signal as a kind of encrypted Pushbullet alternative See More

Specs

Platforms:Android, iOS, Linux, Windows, Mac OS X

Publisher:Open Whisper Systems

End-to-end encryption:Yes

Audio recording:Yes

See All Specs

See All Experiences

367 82

score 9 · Answer 17

Line

Top Pro

Enormous, constantly updated stamp collection

Since many brands use stamps for promotional purposes, everything from movies to food brands to Taylor Swift have released stamp collections. See More

Top Con

Account is locked to the Phone Number & Device

The entire account is locked to the phone number, which cannot be changed. If the application is installed on a new device with the same phone number, the previous account data will be wiped. See More

Top Pro

Photo filter and editing capabilities

Users have in-app editing tools, as well as Line's separate camera application, which has additional tools. See More

Top Con

Users have been concentrated in Japan

Of the 360+ million registered users, the top country is Japan (50 million). Thailand and Indonesia are 2nd and 3rd with 33 and 30 million, respectively, with very small market penetration in the US (10 million, 11th place). See More

Top Pro

Large celebrity and public figure usage rate

The caveat is that they are in Japan, but the app is commonly used to 'follow' public figures. See More

Top Pro

Integrated social network

Similar to Facebook's timeline. See More

9 4

score 173 · Answer 18

Hangouts

Top Con

Lack of end to end encryption

Communications are encrypted between client and Google servers but not from sending client to receiving client. This means that there is still a possibility for someone other than the receiver to read your message if they have access to internal Google servers. But it allows also lightweight chat history search, spam protection and other features. See More

Top Pro

Group video support

If you have signed in your Google account, Hangouts allows making video calls with up to 10 people or one-on-one. There are business, education and government solutions that increase the participant count to for video calls to 15 as well as offers support for those accounts. Additionally, you can switch between using either the front-facing or rear-facing camera on your phone or tablet. See More

Top Con

Transitioning to corporate orientation

Google is turning Hangouts in to a Slack competitor. It's unclear what the future of Hangouts is, but Google has said the consumer Hangouts we now have 'isn't going anywhere.' See More

Top Pro

Free and cross-platform

Google offers all features of Hangouts completely free on iOS, Android and web with quick and reliable sync across all platforms. It's also tightly integrated in other Google services - it can be accessed from services such as Gmail, Google+, Chrome. While the standard Hangouts offering is completely free, there are business, education and government solutions that increase the participant count to for video calls to 15 and offers support that may cost money. See More

Top Con

Is owned by Google

Google is a cooperation that earns money from collecting data and breaching privacy. See More

Top Pro

No need to create a separate account if you use any other Google service

Hangouts uses Google account credentials. If you use any other Google service, then you already have an account set up. See More

Top Con

Poor interface

The app tends to lag, the design can be confusing and considering that another app has to be installed that supplies another icon in the home screen in order to get a dialer for calls in Hangouts, overall it is very confusing and cluttered. See More

Top Pro

Chrome browser extension

Use the extension on any computer you can run Chrome browser to text from your computer or tablet! See More

Top Con

No rich text editing

On Android you can receive messages with bold or italic text. However, you cannot bold or italicize text on Android, only on iOS devices or via the web interface. See More

Top Pro

Excellent read receipts in group chat

It's possible to know what each and every participant of the group has read. Their icons are displayed below the last message. See More

Top Con

No way to moderate groups

If a member of a group chat room becomes disruptive, or there's some other need, there's no way in Hangouts to remove somebody from an existing chatroom. Similarly, if somebody is no longer active, there's no way to remove that user from the chat room to make slot for new active members. See More

Top Pro

Save and sync your chats across multiple devices

Start chatting on your phone, then on your computer, then on your tablet seamlessly! See More

Top Con

Buggy video calls

Whether video calls work on your device is pure lottery, and there's nothing you can do to fix it. See More

Top Pro

Can share animated GIFs

If you have gifs in your mobile phone, you can share them in the conversation and your partner will be able to see it animated in the chat. See More

Top Con

Poor indication of who's online

There is no way to find out if a person in your contact's list is online or not in the Android app. See More

Top Pro

Google Voice integration

Google Voice is a service that enables making and receiving free phone calls within US. Google Voice forwards incoming calls to all connected devices and allows placing calls from any of the connected devices, but they will show as coming from the Google Voice number. Hangouts completely integrates Google Voice, allowing you to place calls and receive texts and voicemail from all of your devices. The Hangouts app for Android also includes a needed dialer for making calls with the users Google Voice number. See More

Top Con

Poorly manages data

Doesn't cache images well either received or sent. Often users will see the sent images re-downloading, same for conversations. See More

Top Pro

Free calls to US and Canada from anywhere in the world

Hangouts app for Android can be extended with an optional dialer for making calls. Most calls to US and Canada are free and international calls have cheap rates. A Google Voice account will be needed in order have a number that allows these calls to be made. See More

Top Con

API support was removed

This change closed options for integrations and connections between similar apps. See More

Top Pro

Advanced status sharing

Hangouts can inform about the status of other users including what device they are currently using, whether they are in the middle of a call and when were they last seen. This allows making sure that you're not disturbing someone when initiating a conversation. It's possible to granularly turn off status sharing. See More

Top Con

Not available on Windows Phones

There is no Hangouts app for the Windows Phone. See More

Top Pro

Video tools

Hangouts can add different effects and overlays to video calls that can be viewed on your device. Unfortunately, they can't be set from your phone. See More

Top Con

Doesn't support sending voice notes or video recordings

Currently there is no built in function that supports creating and sending voice notes or video recordings. See More

Top Pro

Seamless integration with OK Google for voice control and typing

Hangouts can be used completely hands free, even if the app is not open and the phone is locked: "OK Google, send a Hangouts message to Mary". See More

Top Con

No customer support

Free product, you're on your own. See More

Top Con

Won't send SMS/MMS anymore

They removed support for sms/mms. The same goes with integration to hangouts. See More

Top Con

No SMS/MMS backup

They don't have options to backup sms to cloud. See More

Top Con

SMS messages sent from the web app can't be sent outside North America

SMS messages sent from the web app can only be sent to number in America and Canada - sending to foreign numbers won't work, although you can still receive texts from anywhere. See More

Specs

Platforms:Web / iOS / Android / OSX / Chrome

Publisher:Google Inc

File Size:Varies with device

Required Android Version:Varies with device

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173 67

score 38 · Answer 19

Wickr

Top Pro

Doesn't require a phone number

Unlike most, you can use your phone but you don't have to. You can register without giving anything and add contacts either via e-mail (only) or phone number. See More

Top Con

Partially Open source

Top Pro

Can find other users securely

Instead of using usernames, emails or phone numbers to find other users, Wickr uses hashes derived from phone numbers or email addresses (this applies to the find friends functionality only). Hashes are the result of a one-way cryptographic function, meaning it's purposefully difficult to reconstruct original data (phone numbers and email addresses in this case) from them. For Wickr, hashes are generated on the client's side so that no personal information is ever sent to the Wickr servers. The app finds people on your contact list that also use Wickr by comparing the hashes that get generated from contacts and comparing them to the hashes that are stored on Wickr servers. See More

Top Con

Small user base

Wickr claims that one million users have downloaded the app with no information on how many active users they have. But even if every person that has downloaded the app is an active user, the userbase is really small compared to apps like WhatsApp that boast about hundreds of millions of active users. See More

Top Pro

Group messaging

Top Pro

Content shredder

Wickr has a feature that not only erases all messages, but also overwrites them with junk data. See More

Top Pro

Messages have user-defined lifespan

Messages can have a lifespan between 3 seconds and 6 days. Received messages arrive locked. Once they are opened by the recipient, a timer starts counting down until the message is deleted. Of course, the recipient can still copy them or take a screenshot. See More

Top Pro

Includes a basic photo editor

The editor allows cropping images, drawing and writing text on them as well as add decorations. See More

Top Pro

By default, doesn't allow taking screenshots

Wickr disables the screenshot functionality altogether when the app is open. However, there are ways to circumvent this, as if the user has a rooted phone and has installed apps to overide this block or if a screenshot is taken via some apps that project the screen to a PC. See More

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38 19

score 94 · Answer 20

Viber

Top Pro

Desktop apps allow texting, calling and enables transferring calls between devices

Viber has native apps for both Windows and Mac that allow you to send and receive messages from your desktop. You can also use the desktop to make and receive calls. Synchronizes between all devices you are using Viber on. Allows transferring calls between devices. See More

Top Con

No web client

You cannot login from the web to send and receive messages. See More

Top Pro

Supports voice calls

Viber has really well implemented voice tech. It has comparable quality to Skype and you can even tranfer calls from your phone to your desktop seamlessly. See More

Top Con

The company evades U. S. tax

The company uses the common practice of tax haven addresses in order to avoid paying US taxes despite being registered in Delaware. See More

Top Pro

Completely free

Viber uses data connection and the app is free. See More

Top Con

Constantly on

Need apps like Greenify to stop it from being constantly on and active, even if you don't use it. See More

Top Pro

Clean interface

The interface is simple, functional and intuitive. See More

Top Con

Constant reminders of messages

If you don't check your messages (say your in a group chat and simply don't check all of them), it will flood your notifications. See More

Top Pro

See who of your contacts is using Viber quickly

Viber is tied to your phone number so it can quickly see who else in your contacts list is using the application. See More

Top Con

Doesn't sync well

Sync awfully between Phone and PC clients. See More

Top Pro

Android Wear support

Viber includes Android Wear support on Android 4.3 or higher and Viber 5.3 or higher. See More

Top Con

Proprietary Software

Not Open Source. See More

Top Pro

Same protocol as used in Signal

Viber's protocol uses the same concepts of the "double ratchet" protocol used in Open Whisper Systems Signal application. See More

Top Pro

Public chats

It's possible to be a fly on the wall on other group or one-to-one chats that have been opened up to the public. These public chats are often promotional chats with celebrities. See More

Top Pro

Supports video calling over WiFi and data.

Can call friends using voice or video options. See More

Top Pro

Combines cellular and data messaging

This has an advantage in that if you text someone who uses Viber it will be free, if not it will just revert to SMS. This means you can replace your standard messaging app with Viber as well. See More

Top Pro

Keys only on device

Starting with Viber 6.0 the encryption keys are stored only on the clients themselves, not even Viber itself has access to them. See More

Top Pro

No need to create an account or add contacts

One of the best things about Viber is how it handles setup and sending messages. Viber uses your existing number as your ID, so you don't need to create a separate Viber account. See More

Top Pro

Supports 200 person group chat

Viber allows creating groups of up to 200 people on the Android version of Viber. It also has a cool "smart notifications" feature to prevent being overwhelmed with notifications if a lot of people are active in a chat group. See More

Top Pro

Insight and well documented encryption

Viber has made a documentation available, explaining in great details their encryption system and giving good insight on how it works. See More

Specs

Platforms:Android / iOS / WP / BB / Symbian / Windows / OSX / Linux

Publisher:Viber Media S.a r.l.

File Size:37M

Required Android Version:2.3 and up

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94 44