When comparing Gmail vs Telegram, the Slant community recommends Gmail for most people. In the question“What are the best Material Design apps?” Gmail is ranked 11th while Telegram is ranked 13th. The most important reason people chose Gmail is:
Since both the Gmail Android app and Gmail itself is made by Google, the app supports all features Gmail offers (like labeling/starring) and gets new features implemented early - usually as soon as they are announced.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Best support for Gmail features
Since both the Gmail Android app and Gmail itself is made by Google, the app supports all features Gmail offers (like labeling/starring) and gets new features implemented early - usually as soon as they are announced.
Pro Incredibly fast, advanced & predictive search
Gmail brings much of the functionality and power of Google's search engine to the app's search. You can use operators such as label:, is:, OR, has: among others, define date ranges, limit search to specific groups and so on. And, you can do it all amazingly fast. The search will also try to predict what you're trying to search for before you've even finished your query and offer up those results.
Pro Google Drive integration
The app allows inserting files from Drive straight to email or uploading attachments to Drive before sending them out. It will also notify if the person you're sending the file can open the file or if you should change the sharing settings for that file beforehand. Finally, you can choose which one of your Google accounts you want visible in the app.
Pro Google Calendar integration
Pro Comes bundled with Android for free
Not only is the application free, it comes bundled with the Android OS by default so you don't even have to bother downloading it.
Pro Threaded conversations
Pro Safely automatically displays images
The app does not require a confirmation to show images as Google now hosts the images on their own servers making it safe. You can still disable the automatic displaying of images in the settings if you wish.
Pro Tabs to automatically organize your e-mail
Gmail offers the ability to automatically organize your mail into specific categories:
- Primary
- Social
- Promotions
- Updates
- Priority
Each of the categories can be disabled and you can move your mail around from category to category or set your own rules which sender should be put in which category.
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.
Pro Free of cost
The application is available free of cost.
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.
Pro Media messaging
Videos, gifs, images, geolocation, and documents.
Pro Channels for one way broadcasting
Broadcasting channels suitable for announcing things.
Pro Beautiful UI
Very customizable with a lot of clean looking options.
Pro Possible to send photos and videos without compression
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.
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).
Pro Secure
Pro Saved messages
You can write messages to yourself. You can write some notes, add links, and see everything across all your devices.
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.
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.
Pro Open source client apps
Client apps are open source, making whole service more trustworthy.
Pro Unlimited storage
Unlimited number of files can be stored forever on the cloud. You can upload files up to 1.5 GB each.
Pro Voice and video messages
You can post voice and video messages if you are too lazy to write text messages.
Pro Group Voice Chat
This Discord-like feature adds to the interactivity of the application.
Pro Pinned Messages
You can pin messages to the top of groups or supergroups so members will see them when opening the group.
Pro Self-destruct messages
Messages in individual chats can be set to self destruct on a timer. They will disappear after the timer expires.
Messages in all new chats can be set to self-destruct with a global auto-delete timer in Settings > Privacy and Security > Auto-Delete Messages.
Pro Edit or delete messages after sending them
Pro Banned in China
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.
Pro @mentions
You can ping people to get their attention by @mentioning them.
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.
Pro High quality calls
Uses the latest GPL audio codecs, such as Opus, an adaptative high-quality codec that supersedes AAC at any bitrate.
Pro Customer support is within the app
Although it's volunteer based, but still pretty top-notch if available, which it tends to be.
Pro Large groups can have channels called 'Topics'
Topics are now available in groups of 100+ members and have a sleek two-column layout and new buttons to quickly navigate.
A default topic called General is now in every topic group, holding the group’s service messages and previous message history.
Pro Popular in the USA
On SimilarWeb you can see that Telegram is on the top 15 among all communication apps.
Cons
Con Sorting mail by Unread is unintuitive
Nearly every other mail app has a clear way to sort mail by Unread. In Gmail app you can do that only by typing “label:unread” in the search field.
Con Very limited HTML composing
Composing of HTML formatted mails is very limited. No inline images and only some basic text formatting options.
Con Focused mailbox
There should be a way to disable focus mailbox completely.
Con Too bright, no dark theme
Con Advertising has been added to the client
Con Too heavy
It should be lightweight.
Con Limited notification buttons
Con Changed theme and can't change it back!
Did it without permission and it looks terrible! Washed out look, solid white background with black lame fonts.
Con Search results are not good
Con No intrinsic p2p encryption option
Con Cluttered
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.
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.
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.
Con "Secret Chat" feature is not available for desktop client
Secret chats with end to end encryption are only available on mobile apps.
Con No source code sintax highlighting
Telegram does not have source code syntax highlighting, making it difficult to share code snippets.
Con Does not work for visually impaired
Doesn't work for visually impaired.
Con Does not support spherical 360° photos
Spherical 360° photos becoming more popular these days, but Telegram does not support such format.
Con Does not support text messaging
You can NOT make it your default text messaging App.