When comparing QKSMS vs invi, the Slant community recommends QKSMS for most people. In the question“What are the best SMS apps for Android?” QKSMS is ranked 4th while invi is ranked 9th. The most important reason people chose QKSMS is:
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.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Allows responding to SMS without opening the app
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.
Pro Per-conversation notification settings
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.
Pro Easily communicate with groups
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.
Pro Very active developer who listens to the community
While QKSMS is one of the younger apps, the developer is quickly adding features/fixing bugs.
Pro Free
The app is available for free with an optional donation IAP that ranges from $1-$10.
Pro Beautiful design
Responsive, highly customizable Material Design interface makes for a native looking app that fits in well with Google's UI design guidelines.
Pro Save yourself from sending out bad messages
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.
Pro Readable in day or night due to themes
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.
Pro Schedule messages
Users can schedule messages to be sent for later.
Pro Convenient Android Wear support
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.
Pro Automatically switches between SMS and IM
invi automatically detects if you're talking to someone who's on invi, and switches between SMS and IM automatically to accommodate. That way, you get fully-featured chats when you're talking to someone who has invi, but you also get a beautiful, seamless experience when simply sending SMS messages.
Pro Share and consume rich media without leaving the app
The killer feature of invi is the ability to consume media in the app. For example if someone sends you a link to a Youtube video invi automatically turns it into a playable widget.
Not only can you view the media in the app, but you can also discuss the videos, photos etc while they are playing.
Pro Beautiful interface
The apps design has a level of care and detail put into it that is rare on Android apps. The home screen is not only beautiful, but shows useful information such as the last message sent, and the status of the person.
The messaging interface itself is very clean and useful. As well as the conversation history it tells you if the recipient has read your last message, is currently reading the conversation or is replying. This makes conversations in invi very fluid as you always know the status of the recipient.
Pro Makes it easy and fun to share stuff
invi makes sharing easy and fun - great to enrich conversations with stuff like YouTube clips, photos, games, web articles etc.
Pro Uses phone numbers for contacts
Invi uses your contacts phone numbers, not a app specific username or email address. This has pros and cons. On the upside it's very simple to get started as it automatically adds all your contacts who have invi installed, and if you text someone who doesn't have invi it will simply go to their normal inbox. This makes it very easy to integrate invi into your existing workflow.
On the downside you cannot chat to someone if you don't have their number (gchat friends for example).
Pro Certain apps can be used in split screen
A collection of apps can be used in split screen view with the messenger. These are apps designed or ported specifically for invi. Some of the apps included allow browsing sites like reddit, 9gag, buzzfeed or playing games like 2048 while using the app.
Cons
Con Last update was 2021
Con Buggy
There are little annoyances here and there, from dark theme problems making text unreadable to crashing and missing notifications.
Con Lacks features compared to other offerings
Con No group chat
Con You can only search contacts and not messages
Con Early in development
This app still has some rough edges and missing features (like group chat).
Con Registration difficult for those without a phone #
For those that do not want to share their phone number or just do not have one to share, registration for invi can not be done. This means the app cannot be registered on a tablet or media device (like an iPOD touch) unless there is a number to give, of which neither of those devices when used by themselves have.
Con Android only
The many features cannot be used with people who aren't on Android, and you cannot login from the web.