Telegram vs Signal vs WhatsApp | Full Comparison

Are you unsure which app to use between Telegram vs Signal vs WhatsApp? Read this article, to learn a full comparison to select the best app.

Telegram vs Signal vs WhatsApp | Full Comparison
Telegram vs Signal vs WhatsApp

There was a time when we didn't have chatting apps, but as they became more prevalent, the world changed. Although digital growth has brought numerous benefits, it has also exposed us to a few risks. We've progressed to the point where we can't fathom our lives without a smartphone, and chatting apps have become an indispensable part of our lives, allowing us to communicate with friends, alumni, relatives, family, coworkers, and others.

Most people believe WhatsApp was the first social chat app, although there were already a few others on the market at the time. One thing I have to admit is that WhatsApp was the social messaging program that drew the most attention and forecasted success. 

As a result of its success, numerous chatting apps were released to the market, some of which succeeded and others that failed. Surprisingly, business owners have begun to use WhatsApp and other social chat apps for business or office communication, even though they are unreliable for business. There are delegated office chat apps such as Troop Messenger that will improve team communication and productivity.

WhatsApp was widely used in many countries, but following the announcement of its privacy policy in January 2021, rival applications such as Telegram, Signal, and others gained a significant number of users. Because other apps began to share the space, it is no longer frequently used for instant chat.

Let’s see the comparison between Telegram vs Signal vs WhatsApp

Ownership

WhatsApp Messenger was introduced as freeware in 2009 by its founders Jan Koum and Brian Acton, and it has since superseded BBM, thanks to its user-friendly UI.
FaceBook paid the US $ 19 billion for WhatsApp in February 2014, which was not only a large sum in comparison to its past acquisitions, but also a large sum in the world, and it aided FaceBook's growth.

Nikolai and Pavel Durov, co-founders of RK, launched Telegram in 2013. Telegram's data is split among five data centers located around the world, with the operations center in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Like WhatsApp, Telegram’s success also prompted many companies to develop instant messaging apps, but only a few could sustain and become Telegram Alternatives.

The non-profit Signal Foundation and Signal Messenger LLC developed Signal, a cross-platform centralized encrypted instant messaging service. Signal is presently developed by Signal Messenger LLC, a software firm launched by Moxie Marlinspike and Brian Acton in 2018 and completely owned by the Signal Technology Foundation, a tax-exempt nonprofit corporation they also founded in 2018. 
Access

Telegram lets users access their accounts from multiple devices at once. Users must log in with their phone number as their credentials, and your cloud chats will sync instantly. You may lose access to all of your other devices if your device loses connection.

Signal access is similar to WhatsApp since it allows you to connect your phone to your computer and gain access to your data. Signal only allows you to use one "mobile device" at a time, but you can connect up to five additional devices, such as tablets or computers. This implies that at any given moment, you will only have one primary iPhone or Android smartphone connected to your account.

You may use WhatsApp on your desktop simply by scanning the QR code with your smartphone. All of your messages and data will sync, but if you leave the desktop, your access will be terminated. When it comes to mobile, you can only use it with one phone; to use it with another phone, you must acknowledge the disconnection in the first phone and input the OTP in the new phone.

Features

Telegram

Chats, group chats, and channels are among the basic functions provided. Telegram groups can have up to 200,000 members. Polls, hashtags, bots, quizzes, and other group-specific features help to keep users engaged.
This app also has some unique features, such as self-destructing texts. Unlike WhatsApp, you can edit sent messages and use features such as message scheduling and uncompressed file sharing.

Signal

It may not have as many features as other apps, but the most important ones, including chat and audio/video calls, are end-to-end encrypted.
Voice and video calls are currently limited to eight participants, but group chats can have up to 1000 users.

In comparison to its competitors, Signal offers the option of making Signal messaging the default SMS/MMS program. Users can send and receive unencrypted SMS messages in addition to E2E encrypted Signal messages in this fashion. This is only possible on Android devices.

You can send disappearing messages, comparable to Telegram's self-destructing messages, transmit a one-time viewable image, and send a Note to Self.

WhatsApp

WhatsApp Messenger, like the other messengers in this article, includes all of the essential functions, such as chat, voice messages, file exchange, audio/video calls, and so on.

You can exchange photographs and videos up to the 16MB video and image sharing limit, as well as voice messages. It is possible to send documents, PDFs, spreadsheets, contacts, location information, and so on, which are limited to 100MB in size. WhatsApp users have another benefit: if their file size exceeds a certain limit, they can use the Google Drive link.

WhatsApp allows you to create group chats with up to 256 users, mute or adjust notifications, make audio/video calls with up to 8 people, and more.

Encryption

Telegram supports two layers of secure encryption. Cloud Conversations uses server-client encryption for both private and group chats, while Secret Chats adds an extra layer of end-to-end encryption. Media, text, files, and other types of data are all encrypted in just the same way. According to speculations, Secret chats are much more secure than one-on-one or group chats.

Signal implements end-to-end encryption using the open-source Signal Protocol. Signal invented a different system to communicate between the sender and the recipient called Sealed Sender to preserve user privacy from all aspects. Thus, no one, not even Signal, will be able to tell who is communicating with whom with Sealed Sender.

WhatsApp deployed end-to-end encryption to ensure only you and the person with whom you're interacting can read or listen to what's sent, with no one in between.

Conclusion

If you're looking for a better social chat app, I won't make any recommendations because all of the aforementioned applications are capable of providing fundamental capabilities, so all you have to do is evaluate the additional features to your needs and then choose the best chat app.