Back in the day, we did not have the convenience and blessing that we now indulge in everyday; from morning to night and midnight even! Yes, we are talking about cell phones. When they were first revealed, they were still scarce. Mostly, because many of the people in the day were unable to afford them. Today, however they have expanded. Almost everyone you meet owns a private cell phone. Many of them own multiple of them! With these mobile phones, it becomes easier to communicate. You can send typed messages, make urgent calls, store data (pictures, audio, documents and so on), browse the internet and so forth. But sending a typed message and making calls with your sim card and assigned number requires recharging your sim card over and over again. Say, you have a best friend who has shifted to another country because her work requires for her to market their brand by travelling around. Of course, since you both are close, you both are going to talk to each other! And once you begin talking you can never stop. You are going to hear everything about what your friend ate, what she discovered, what she observed, whom she met with and so on. But boy, all of this ongoing and never ending information is going to deprive your wallet a lot by the end. To save yourself from added expenses, we now have applications. With advanced smartphones, you now get to experience everything through your internet connection. One of such applications allows you to send instant messages and make virtual auditory or even video calls without charging you a single penny! Since more and more smartphone users are turning the market big for such type of applications, more and more developers have begun to start their own application. WhatsApp is one of the very popular instant messaging application, but now it has met its uprising competition: Telegram. So, in this article we are going to analyse Telegram vs WhatsApp and see which one you should invest yourself into more!
So before we begin the Telegram vs WhatsApp facade, we should help you discover a little about WhatsApp as an application. WhatsApp messenger was established about nine years ago from today. This freeware instant messaging and voice calling application runs mainly through mobile devices and no from stable personal computers as well. You can avail WhatsApp on any device supporting Blackberry software, Symbian, Windows 10 (mobile and desktop), Windows 8 (mobile and desktop), Android, and iOS. Statistics of 2016 showed that WhatsApp had reached about one billion users worldwide which has now made WhatsApp one of the very popular messaging application. While WhatsApp is popular all over the world, most of WhatsApp’s users come from Europe, Brazil and India. Did you know that WhatsApp was founded by two of Yahoo!’s employees? Yes, Jan Koum and Brian Acton left Yahoo! in 2007 to find better jobs. However, numerous rejections led them to turn to their savings and without any further delays, both of them released WhatsApp 2.0. Suddenly, the number of users increased to a number of 250,000. With added funding and help, Jan Koum was able to expand WhatsApp. Well yes, a lot of hard work went into the success and engagement of WhatsApp and it has paid off!
While WhatsApp has reached its heights, it now has a rising star challenging its success. This brings us to the second half of Telegram vs WhatsApp, before we move on with the battle of the features, we should review what Telegram is as a company. Telegram is a recent instant messaging application, launched in 2013. This non-profit application is available on iOS, Windows Phone, Android, macOS, Linux, and Windows NT. Telegram allows its users to experience a cloud-based service. The users can send out messages, exchange any type of media file and make calls. Telegram is a production of Pavel Durov, a Russian entrepreneur. By the February of 2016, Telegram’s statistics revealed that it had reached a number of 100 million users who were active on monthly bases whereas 15 billion users sent messages using Telegram each day! This period, according to Telegram, marked 50 percent of its growth. This application is registered as English LLP as well as American LLC. However, Telegram refuses to reveal their offices to protect its users from any governmental confidentiality breech. Still, it is noted that the main headquarters of Telegram are located in Berlin, Germany.
Enough about the companies then, because it is now time to pit Telegram and WhatsApp together in the Telegram vs WhatsApp battle. In order to see which one is better than the other one should really focus on the limits an application lets you cross while providing high quality experience. In short, we say that it is the features of an application that matter more. So, this Telegram vs WhatsApp battle is going to focus on the features of both the applications. In this article then, we are simply going to list down the features for both of them and leave the Telegram vs WhatsApp decision on your shoulders!
First of Telegram vs WhatsApp then is Telegram itself. Telegram allows you to chat and send messages to anyone in the world. Whether they are in America, Canada, Pakistan, or South Korea, you can very easily and comfortably communicate with them. This application is cloud based which simply means that you can use it on your mobile phone but you can also use it on your computer. You will have one account for both which will let you access your data from any one of the two devices. Telegram also ensures privacy. This application makes use of encryption whenever you send or receive any messages, files and so on. This encryption is conducted at a very fast rate and so Telegram ensures you that it is secure. However, in recent years many individuals have complained against the encryption abilities of Telegram and have accuses Telegram for leaking their data to other individuals. So, you might want to look into that debate!
Nevertheless, with Telegram while you can have one on one chats with your friends and family, you can also have group chats. Each of these groups can contain an approximate number of 5000 members! Yes, you can run a whole large-scale company through Telegram’s group chats if you want to. If you are a cross-platform user, meaning you have to use applications on multiple devices, Telegram has a sync option that allows you to access the application and your recent or old messages on any platform. Telegram allows you to securely send documents to your friends and family as well. And, if you doubt the security of Telegram’s services, know that this instant messaging application allows you to set a “Self-destruct” timer especially for very sensitive data files. Furthermore, Telegram is add-free and Telegram comes with no size limit for how much data you can store within it. This means, you can receive or send endless amount of chat messages, files and so on. With that, while you are chatting with your loved ones, make use of emoticons with Telegram, voice message service and stickers!
While Telegram sounds awesome, this debate brings us to our next competitor: WhatsApp. This application which was released way before Telegram offers cross-platform messaging with an added benefit: It allows you to make phone calls. While group phone calls or conference phone calls are still a miss, this well-known application allows you to use your internet connection to send our free voice calls and instant messages individually or within groups. The groups on WhatsApp however, can only have a limited number of 256 individuals. But, on a brighter side you can still run a smaller-scale company through WhatsApp’s group messaging services. WhatsApp allows you to share videos, photos, documents and so on. Each document can be up to 100 MB in its size. The latest update of WhatsApp includes an end-to-end encryption process to help keep your information in secure hands. This can also be availed on the desktop version of WhatsApp.
With that, WhatsApp allows you to use different names for your chats and groups while you can also customize them: Add profile pictures, mute them, set a different tone or a notification light and so on. WhatsApp then allows you to sync your chats from your phone to your personal computer (Just like Telegram!). Even if you have a very slow internet connection, WhatsApp lets you send out instant messages faster than ever. However, of course a slows internet will hinder your call experience. You can also use the in-built or your device’s camera to snap a picture and sent it out to your friends. You can post statuses and now you can share stories on WhatsApp that last for 24 hours of your day. You can block people and set privacy on your account as well! With all that, WhatsApp keeps your account far away from hackers at all times.
So, from this Telegram vs WhatsApp battle, which one rubs you right? They might have many features in common, but personally WhatsApp’s new update has taken it to that extra mile. However, give Telegram some time and see the heights it can reach too!
Hina Akram