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UtilitiesWebMessaging

What are the best messaging web apps?

6

Options
Considered

12

User
Recs.

Nov 9, 2023

Last
Updated

6 Options Considered

Best messaging web apps	Price	Platforms	Audio recording
-- Telegram	Free / Paid	Web, Android, iOS, Windows, Linux, macOS, BSD, Windows phone, UWP	Yes
-- Signal	Free	Android, iOS, Linux, Windows, Mac OS X	Yes
-- Element	Free / Paid	Web, Windows, Linux, Mac, iOS, Android	-
-- Discord	Free / Paid	Web, Windows, Linux, Mac, iOS, Android	No
-- Microsoft Teams	Free / Paid	Web, Windows, Mac OS X, iOS, Android	-

Telegram

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

Specs

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

Audio recording:Yes

Publisher:Various companies affiliated with Telegram

End-to-end encryption:Secret chats

Top Pro

Voice-to-text transcription

Premium users can transcribe video and voice messages by tapping the "→A" button in the bottom right corner. 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

@mentions

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

Top Con

Security concerns

All contacts, messages, media and their decryption keys are stored on Telegrams servers by default. End-to-end encryption for messages is not enabled by default. See More

Top Pro

Edit or delete messages after sending them

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

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

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

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

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

Cross-platform

Works on Windows, Mac, Linux, Android iOS, Windows Phone, and Firefox OS even. Has a web app that changes it's appearance based on the device it's running on and if it's browser is full screen, etc. See More

Top Pro

Possible to send photos and videos without compression

Top Pro

Beautiful UI

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

Top Pro

Media messaging

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

Top Pro

Privacy focused

In addition to the end-to-end encryption [only in secret chats] 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 and their devices. See More

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 2GB in size. Images can be compressed, too. See More

Signal

Top Pro

Free and open source

Signal is free and open source software, enabling anyone to verify its security by auditing the code. 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

RickZeeland's Experience

Signal is free and open-source software, enabling anyone to verify its security by auditing the code. See More

Specs

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

Audio recording:Yes

Publisher:Open Whisper Systems

End-to-end encryption:Yes

Top Pro

Works everywhere in every country

Unlike most messenger apps, Signal works reliably in all countries by securely circumventing internet censorship. See More

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

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 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

Needs access to your phone number and contacts to work

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

Discord

Top Pro

Can be used in browser

Users can invite others to join a Discord channel via a web link, which means no installation is required to use the software - which is one of the big typical barriers to entry for social software. See More

Top Con

Proprietary software

Discord is closed-source, meaning their code isn't available for inspection or reproduction. See More

Specs

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

Audio recording:No

Videoconferencing:Yes

Top Pro

Good 1-click invite system

Discord allows inviting people to a specific channel with a link. Links can be set to expire. Low effort/passive invite mechanics. See More

Top Con

Developer's previous company was sued for privacy violations, among other things

See: here and here. Discord's privacy policy also states that while they might not sell your data, a company they get sold to will quite possibly attain said data and thus may be in "more" shady hands. See More

Top Pro

User friendly

Discord follows the same type of interface design popularised by Slack, which is extremely clean and attractive, and doesn't clutter the interface with unnecessary chrome and cruft. See More

Top Con

Some functions cut out and available only with "Nitro" subscription

Top Pro

Low effort invite mechanics

Top Con

No self-hosting avaliable

Discord is wholly hosted by Discord (the company), you cannot run private instances, and all servers are hosted on their infrastructure. For most people, this won't really impact their usage. See More

Top Pro

Targeting of roles

Targeting roles allows for quickly requesting someone from a group e.g. artist, moderator, etc. See More

Top Pro

Syntax highlighting and Markdown support

The support is limited but still exists. It's a killer feature for dev teams. See More

Top Pro

Cross-platform

Discord has native desktop apps for Windows, OSX and Linux, and mobile (Android, iOS) platforms and it's also accessible from the web. See More

Top Pro

Ability to create bots

Discord provides an API for creating custom bots. See More

Top Pro

Numerous controls for setting member roles.

Deny access, Deny write message, Allow read messages etc. See More

Top Pro

Supports video and text communication

Behaves and looks like Slack for regular text channels, but with the ability to create voice channels as well See More

Top Pro

Has low-latency VoIP support

Top Pro

Game integration

Discord shows which game each user is currently playing, which among other things helps users to form PUGs with minimal hassle. See More

Top Pro

Easy setup

You can quickly send invites to people and they can join in using the web client without having to create an account or install the app. See More

Top Pro

Free for unlimited users

Unlimited amount of users. See More

Top Pro

Language localization

Have localization for many language, including Russian. See More

Top Pro

Dark theme out of the box

Top Pro

Friendly payment policy

Free account have no tangible restrictions. Premium account is just a way to say "thank you" to developers. And it work for all servers of discord (not as in slack). And it can be purchased by one who wants. In contrast to Slask, where all active members of the server should be "premium". See More

Top Pro

Familiar for Slack users

For those that are used to the way Slack (a similar chat client) works, Discord will be familiar in its use, which lowers the learning curve quite a bit for those that have switched or tried Slack before. See More

Top Pro

Open source bots and management tools

Discord has a wide variety of bots for things from airhorn noises to automated server management, to leveling systems for chat. The bot API is open and there are dedicated sites for finding bots. See More

Troop messenger

ThoroughKinichAhau's Experience

It is a good texting app for the web. See More

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