When comparing Instagram Direct vs Wickr, the Slant community recommends Wickr for most people. In the question“What are the best messaging apps for Android?” Wickr is ranked 19th while Instagram Direct is ranked 47th. The most important reason people chose Wickr is:
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.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Video & photo messages
Photos have to be cropped to be square.
Pro Filters
That can be applied to photos and videos.
Pro Group messages
With up to 15 people.
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.
Pro Content shredder
Wickr has a feature that not only erases all messages, but also overwrites them with junk data.
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.
Pro Group messaging
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.
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.
Pro Includes a basic photo editor
The editor allows cropping images, drawing and writing text on them as well as add decorations.
Cons
Con Walled garden
Can't communicate with people outside of Instagram.
Con Partially Open source
.
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.