Google Hangouts vs QKSMS

Hangouts offers both an Android and iOS app so users can participate from nearly any mobile device in addition to his Desktop.

Any user can share his screen (or only a specific desktop or window) while still continuing an audio conversation.

Hangouts works with up to 10 participants using video out of the box or up to 15 if you are a business, government or school. It determines who is the primary speaker at any given time, and the camera view automatically switches to that user.

Hangouts can scale to become a videoconferencing solution for an entire company, since the software can run on nearly all platforms. In fact, Google itself uses Hangouts as its meeting room video conference software.

Hangouts is integrated with Gmail & Google+, does not require you to download desktop software, and all chats can take place directly in your browser, significantly reducing the barrier to entry for a new user.

Google offers all features of Hangouts completely free. There are business, education and government solutions that increase the participant count to for video calls to 15 and offers support.

Hangouts work on Android, iOS, Chrome OS, web and as a Chrome extension.

With Google+ “Hangouts on Air”, you can broadcast any hangout to an unlimited audience via your Goolge+ Profile or simply a generic YouTube link. Moreover, any Hangout on Air (public or private) is automatically saved as YouTube video that you can keep for private reference or use in any way that you would normally share a YouTube video. This allows you to record conversations without additional obtrusive software.

Allows for a fixed phone number, receiving and making calls. Calling US or Canada is free.

When chatting with people while trying to plan a meet up, the share map button can be extremely useful.

When a new sms is received, a window will pop up that has the message and allows answering it from there, without having to open the app. It can be dismissed by tapping anywhere else on the screen.

Users can set different notification settings per user as an easy way to know who is messaging without having to look at the actual message.

Users can communicate with large groups at the same time due to the included group messaging feature. This is convenient when trying to synchronize with friends or colleagues.

While QKSMS is one of the younger apps, the developer is quickly adding features/fixing bugs.

The app is available for free with an optional donation IAP that ranges from $1-$10.

Responsive, highly customizable Material Design interface makes for a native looking app that fits in well with Google's UI design guidelines.

Through delayed messaging one can set it up so that a message is not sent automatically. This can help for those times that it may be best to think something over before sending out a rash message.

There are light and dark themes available within the settings which can be switched depending on how light it is around one when using the app. The dark theme can also help to conserve battery when being used as not as much brightness and hence battery will be used.

Users can schedule messages to be sent for later.

Those that own an Android Wear device will be able to set it to receive their messages on the Android Wear device making for convenient notifications and easy messaging through not having to take their phone out.