Skip to main content

Social apps review

Overall best: Telegram

Telegram has addressed all of the needs of a private messaging app plus fancy social features like groups and channels. Use Telegram.

  • Private chatting with friends? Use Signal.

Apps are ranked by recommendation. Only the free versions for normal users are considered

Concerns​

The real freedom does not mean free to do whatever, but means free to do the right thing.

Everything you want​

  • Own and control your data

  • Decentralised end-to-end encryption

  • Cross-signed verification

  • Open network

  • Messaging, voice and video

Without the bad stuff​

  • No 3rd party access

    • No political censorship

    • No data mining

    • No commercial or state surveillance

    • No eavesdropping

  • No walled gardens

  • No usage limits

⭐ Telegram​

https://telegram.org/

  • up to 200,000 people in a group chat
  • transfer files up to 2 GB
  • 500m active users
  • Public channels with >1000 subscribers are going to have ads
    • ads need to be approved
    • ads cannot have external links
    • ads won't have tracking

Pro

  • No censorship on private chats

  • End-to-end encryption with MTProto 2.0 protocol

    • Note that messages will be decrypted at the server by default

    • To ensure the messages do not reach the server and encrpted at all times, send as Secret message (private chat only feature)

  • Good features

    • Has public channel feature

    • Self-destruct messages

    • Extensive customization with emoji packs and bots etc.

    • Built-in translation

    • Sync all the messages

    • Remembers your scroll position in a long message

    • Unlimited message edits

    • Auto redacts long links to save screen space

  • The app is entirely free

Con

  • The social features have political censorship
    • In January 2021, Telegram confirmed that it blocked "hundreds" of neo-Nazi and white supremacist channels with tens of thousands of followers for inciting violence

⭐ Session​

  • A fork of another open source encrypted messenger Signal
  • Doesn't need a phone number to add people (which Signal does)

https://getsession.org/

⭐ Signal​

https://www.signal.org/

  • up to 1000 people in a group chat
  • transfer files up to 100 MB
  • 40m active users

Pro

  • Open source at https://github.com/signalapp

  • Decentralised end-to-end encryption with the Signal Protocol

  • Cross-signed verification

  • Open network

  • Only collects the phone number

  • Self-destruct messages

Con

Element​

https://element.io/

https://element.io/pricing

Dedicated space (XXX.element.io) costs \$10/month

Pro

  • Open source
  • End to end encryption, unlimited rooms and group chat size
  • Natively supports decentralization
  • Many organizations with millions of people use, including Mozilla, KDE, GNOME and Gitter, the French Government

Con

  • Small user base so far

Discord​

Pro

  • Good voice quality

Con

Gitter​

  • For software engineer community only
  • Gitter has been acquired by GitLab, which has political censorship.

Whatsapp​

Pro

  • End-to-end encryption

Con

  • Censorship: many political topics
  • ads are coming
  • Facebook privacy concerns
  • Limits repost

Instagram​

Con

  • Censorship: many political topics and anything falls into Facebook's "community standards"
    • Encourages "report" of conversation
  • No end-to-end encryption
  • Has ads
  • Facebook privacy concerns

Facebook messenger​

Con

  • Censorship: many political topics and anything falls into Facebook's "community standards"
    • Encourages "report" of conversation
  • No end-to-end encryption
  • Has ads
  • Facebook privacy concerns

Wechat​

Con

  • Censorship: wide range of topics
  • Encryption: none
  • Insecure, constantly monitored
  • Bad desktop app and must use phone to login
  • Does not support
    • Outside stickers and Gifs
    • Open links in browser

Products with potential​