When comparing Kato vs GroupMe, the Slant community recommends Kato for most people. In the question“What is the best team chat software?” Kato is ranked 36th while GroupMe is ranked 49th. The most important reason people chose Kato is:
All functionality is available free of charge.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Free
All functionality is available free of charge.
Pro Reads receipts
GroupMe has a built in function to read receipts.
Pro Great web client
GroupMe has an excellent web client that can be used to send and receive messages and manage groups from the desktop.
Pro IFTTT Integration
Allows sending messages from web services via IFTTT.
Pro Integrated calendar
It's possible to add location and time with reminders directly in the GroupMe app.
Pro Makes it easy to silence 1 or all groups
GroupMe has settings that allow muting a single group or turn off all GroupMe notifications from within the app.
Pro Does not require everyone in the group to have a smartphone
GroupMe can set up a custom phone number which allows people without the App to send and receive messages. This makes it easy to add anyone to messaging.
Cons
Con Shutting down on Aug 31, 2015
The company behind Kato decided to pivot to Sameroom.io that aims to put together communities from different services like Slack or HipChat.
Con Drains battery fast
GroupMe, in order to have a constant connection which allows for notifications drains the battery of a device quickly, which is not ideal for a messaging app that one needs on time notifications from.