The Definitive Guide to Choosing a Chat App

Find out which chat apps you should be using. Compare and contrast to get yourself the best chatting experience!

Whether it be to make new friends or talk to your old ones, online chatting is the way to go. But getting started in the world of chatting can be a bit overwhelming. Where are your friends, how do you find new friends, what apps should you use? You probably have tons of questions you want answered before you start, and we’ll help you out with that. In this guide, we’ll walk you through a variety of different chat apps and tell you what makes each of them worth considering.

It’s important to note that not all chat apps are the same, although many of them share similar features on the surface. Similarly, there’s no single “best” chat app compared to the others, since they all have their own strengths and weaknesses, or are built for different uses entirely. So as you go through this guide, keep that in mind, and make the decision yourself for which chat app actually suits your needs and preferences best.

Without any further ado, let’s get started with the biggest competitors in the chatting world.

Facebook Messenger

Since Facebook is already a massive social network, it naturally offers different ways of communicating online. Sure enough, it has its own messaging app for people to communicate efficiently. It’s a very feature-rich app, so you can use it for:

• Texts
• Pictures
• Videos
• GIFs
• Files
• Stickers

Stickers are like small reaction images that Facebook uses, which is a somewhat unique feature compared to other apps. They’re better for your data usage than sending a picture, but the list of available stickers is a bit limited, and you need to download packs every time, unlike just using emojis that are always available.

Speaking of emojis, Facebook Messenger also has its own collection, with the ability to send them in different sizes. On top of this, you can set nicknames for people, change the color of your chats with individual people, and create group chats or rooms with up to 150 members. It’s great for organizing events and get-togethers with friends, or just keeping in touch in this feature-rich environment.

There are a few cons to using Facebook Messenger, though. Every user must have a Facebook account, not just a Messenger account, which is a real barrier for anyone who’s stepped away from the platform. On top of that, to send messages to new people, you generally need to have them added as a “Friend” on Facebook first, or they may not even see your message land in their main inbox. So it’s not the best platform for meeting brand-new people — it shines more as a tool for staying close with people you already know.

You can find Facebook Messenger on the Play Store or download it from the App Store.

Snapchat

Snapchat is an app that’s hugely popular with today’s younger crowd, since its purpose isn’t just to send texts to your friends. The concept behind Snapchat is the ability to send pictures to people comfortably, letting you choose how long that person can view it before it deletes itself.

Snapchat’s core features include:

• Images
• Videos
• Texts
• Secrecy

Since Snapchat deletes most messages and images after a while (unless saved), it offers an unusual level of confidentiality compared to other chat apps. Of course, the other person can still save messages and screenshot pictures, and you’ll know when they do, but the disappearing-by-default nature makes it a genuinely different kind of conversation. If you’re discussing something relatively sensitive, this can be a handy feature, but it’s not the ideal tool for messages you actually want to keep around for reference.

On top of this, video recording on Snapchat is somewhat limited — only a certain length is allowed at a time — so if you want to upload a full minute of your best karaoke performance, it’ll get cut short unless you stitch multiple clips together.

But don’t be too alarmed by these limitations, since they’re all part of the bigger picture. Snapchat’s main goal is to give people a glimpse into your life quickly and casually. You can snap yourself on the bus, the food in front of you, or whatever’s on TV. Add a little caption or a quick drawing, and it lets you share and stay in touch with people without needing to sit down and write out a proper message.

You can find Snapchat on the Play Store or download it from the App Store.

Kik Messenger

For fewer features and more simplicity, Kik may be the ideal messaging app for you. It leans into its simplicity, but that doesn’t mean it lacks in every department. Signing up is as easy as typing in your email address, and you’re all set to start chatting away almost immediately, no phone number required.

Since Kik is so simple, it isn’t as feature-rich as some of the others, but it still has the essentials, letting you send:

• Images
• Videos
• Texts

It does have a few unique options too, like built-in bots and games. Kik doesn’t have a great built-in way of finding new friends within the app itself, unless you happen to stumble across a public group and join it. But there are plenty of communities online dedicated specifically to finding new Kik friends, and because that broader community is so large, it ends up being a genuinely solid app for meeting new people once you know where to look.

Despite being a bit limited on the surface, it never really gets boring. As mentioned, Kik has bots and games built in, so you can challenge your friends to something quick, or if you’re feeling a bit lonely, chat with a bot that can either hold a casual conversation or take you on a choose-your-own-adventure-style journey. It might not be as feature-rich as Facebook Messenger, but it’s still a fantastic app for a specific kind of low-key, simple chatting experience.

You can find Kik Messenger on the Play Store or download it from the App Store.

iMessage

The tech giant Apple also has its own messaging system called iMessage. This messaging app is fantastic, but its one real limitation is that Android users can’t use it at all, and as a result, can’t communicate with people over that specific service. So if you’re on an Android phone and have no intention of switching to a Mac, iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch, you can probably skip this section entirely.

iMessage ties everything to your Apple ID, so it comes with full iCloud support baked in. You can back up and restore your messages if you lose your phone, or offload them to free up space on your device. You can share images and files from your iCloud Drive directly within a conversation, and you can find people using their Apple ID information, like their email address.

iMessage acts like a regular texting app, except with a lot more features layered on top, similar in spirit to Facebook Messenger. The main difference is really just which ecosystem it’s tied to: one links to Facebook accounts, the other to Apple ID and iCloud. So for Apple device users whose friends are also on Apple devices, iMessage tends to be the more natural, seamless choice over Facebook Messenger.

iMessage should already be installed on your Apple device by default, so there’s no downloading required — just open the Messages app and it’s ready to go.

WhatsApp

Last but not least, we have WhatsApp, another incredibly popular chat app that’s also owned by Facebook’s parent company. It offers fewer bells and whistles than Facebook Messenger, but it provides a more texting-like experience overall.

To sign up and send messages with WhatsApp, you use your phone number, so it resembles a texting alternative right from the start. It will send standard SMS text messages whenever it can, as long as doing so doesn’t rack up extra charges on your plan. But when a phone signal isn’t available, or the message is going long-distance, WhatsApp will also let you use Wi-Fi or mobile data to send it instead, making it an excellent choice whether you’re chatting locally or across the world.

WhatsApp doesn’t stop there, either — it offers quite a few features of its own:

• Security
• Group Chats
• Calls over Wi-Fi
• File Sharing

The main selling point of WhatsApp is that it uses Wi-Fi or other internet connections whenever possible. This means you won’t need to pay extra on your phone bill for a long call, or one that’s long-distance. It applies to texts, files, pictures, and calling alike, so if you generally have access to the internet, it’s a genuinely great choice.

On top of that, it has excellent security. Messages and calls are end-to-end encrypted by default, meaning no one can intercept them while you’re sending anything sensitive.

Like most of the other apps here, you can easily share files and documents with others, so setting up a group chat with coworkers can be a genuinely useful way to share reports and stay organized. It keeps you productive throughout the day with fast, seamless communication.

You can find WhatsApp on the Play Store or download it from the App Store.

How to actually choose

With five solid options on the table, the deciding factor usually comes down to two questions: who are you trying to talk to, and what kind of conversations do you want to have? If most of your friends are already using a specific app, that’s often reason enough to just go with it — the best chat app is frequently just “the one your people are already on,” regardless of how many extra features a competitor might offer.

If you care most about staying close with a tight circle of existing friends and family, Facebook Messenger or iMessage (if you’re all on Apple devices) will probably feel the most natural. If you want a low-friction way to casually document your day and share quick, disappearing snapshots, Snapchat is built exactly for that. If you’d rather keep things simple and are open to meeting new people through a wider online community, Kik is worth a look. And if security, international reach, and a clean, no-nonsense interface matter most to you, WhatsApp is hard to beat.

There’s also nothing stopping you from running more than one of these at once — plenty of people use one app for close friends and another for meeting new people, and that’s a perfectly reasonable way to split things up rather than trying to force every kind of conversation into a single inbox.

Don’t be afraid to run more than one

Plenty of people settle into using two or even three of these apps at once, and there’s nothing wrong with that. You might use iMessage or Facebook Messenger for close friends and family, WhatsApp for international contacts, and Snapchat for quick, casual check-ins with a specific group. Trying to force every single conversation into one app usually just means missing out on the specific strengths each one brings to the table.

Consider what your contacts already use

At the end of the day, the “best” chat app is often simply whichever one the people you actually want to talk to are already using. A technically superior app with better security or more features doesn’t do you much good if none of your friends or family have it installed. Before committing fully to a new app, it’s worth a quick check of who in your life is already there, since that alone can make the decision for you more than any feature comparison ever could.

Conclusion

Each app has its purpose, and every user who wants to chat online has their own intentions behind it. So choosing an app might feel overwhelming at first, but once you understand how they differ, it becomes much easier to pick between them. You can browse your app store for other options too, including ones that aren’t as mainstream — just look at their feature set and decide if it suits your needs. If you want to see how a few more options stack up, including Telegram, Discord, and Skype, take a look at our broader comparison of messaging apps.

Once you’ve settled on an app, you might also enjoy gaming with your contacts — a lot of these apps have some surprisingly fun games built right in.

Our list of the top chat apps should be enough to get you started, so take a look through and check out the feature outlines above. If you’re just getting started with online chatting, honestly, any of these apps will do just fine, since you likely won’t need every single feature right away.

If you’re looking to find new people to talk to on any of these apps, remember to check out our community boards here. We’re very welcoming to new users and would love for you to join us.