When comparing Material Messaging vs Pulse SMS, the Slant community recommends Pulse SMS for most people. In the question“What are the best messaging apps for Android?” Pulse SMS is ranked 16th while Material Messaging is ranked 45th.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Dual SIM support
The app is designed from the ground up with support for 2 SIM cards in mind.
Pro Message scheduling
Allows the scheduling of messages in advance.
Pro Pushbullet integration
Pro Per-contact customization
Pro Very few bugs, good dev support
Pro Fast load times and transitions
Pro Great-looking material design
The app follows Material Design guidelines very closely.
Pro Multi-platform/Unified Messaging
Pro Open-source
Pro Per-Conversation Customization
Pro One-time fee
Pro Good Material Design UI
Pro Encrypted messaging content on devices
Pro You can use the iOS app as long as you know how to sideload it
It is on GitHub and there's a way to sideload it with Cydia impactor and appsigner.io
Cons
Con Settings menu is barebones
In addition to visual customization the app allows turning sounds, notifications and vibrations on an off. That's about it.
Con No RCS support
But only Messages has that.
Con Inconsistent and intermittently unreliable syncing with web app.
Forgets password periodically - dev insists that it doesn't do this - but it does.
Despite syncing via cloud there is no backup option.
Con The web and pc clients haven't been updated in almost a year. No support for gifs in the web or pc clients. Sometimes the web and pc clients are unable to login or do not sync messages.
Con Lacks support for UWP on Windows 10
UWP apps aren't hard to build - Luke K could bring his app to the Windows Store easily and make a TON of people happy at work.