28 Android Chatting Apps For Free And Secure Messaging
Chat apps are an easy method of connecting with people in our everyday life. They are simple software or applications that allows us to send and receive messages. These apps are also known as messaging apps. Up to 2 billion people worldwide use different chat apps every day. Right now WhatsApp is the globally leading chat app platform with over 2000 million users according to Statista.com.
There are many chatting apps available and the number is increasing every day. Though the core feature is sending and sharing information and messages they vary in their features like video calls, group chat, chat meetings, encryption, information security, and pricing. Almost every chat app has its own extra features like staying anonymous, fastest response, easy to use, more options for the user.
It's hard to know which app is best for you. We have used multiple chatting apps, gone through many information and tried to find out what are the best chat apps for an individual who is trying to choose one. Here we have tried to answer some of the popular questions about chat apps like:
- What is the best free chat app?
- What is the best team chat app?
- What is the most secure messaging app?
- What is the best app for free video calls?
- Where can I chat anonymously?
- How do I combine messages and messenger?
- How can I chat offline?
- Where can I chat with strangers online?
Best Free Chat Apps
1. WhatsApp
With over 2 billion users, WhatsApp is the most popular instant messenger in the world. The chatting app is easy to use, fast response, end to end encrypted. It's totally free. In addition to personal messaging, the chatting application has group chat, voice call, and video call features. It has a broadcasting feature that lets you send the same message to 256 people at a time.
With Whatsapp, you can send videos of 16MB size and 100MB of general files. It is available in almost all operating systems and mostly used in iOS, Android, Windows, and macOS. On Whatsapp, you can start a message that makes it easy to find it easily.
2. Facebook Messenger
The largest and the most powerful social networking platform Facebook introduced its own instant messenger in 2008. It was introduced as the Facebook Chat. It was later separated from facebook.com and was launched as a dedicated web interface Messenger.com. It has over 1.3 billion users globally.
Facebook messenger has voice and video call features. It has advanced group chat and group call features. Files of 25 MB in size can be uploaded and shared. It is available for iOS, Android for years. An official Windows version was released later. There is also a messenger for macOS available. Facebook Messenger has the largest number of languages available on the platform with over 116 languages. It's free.
3. WeChat
Wechat is one of the most popular chatting apps in the world. it has earned the nickname of Super App. If you are in China you need instant messenger for many other purposes like social networking and also a payment system. It has the highest limit of file sharing and can send files in chats up to 100MB in file size. We chat is perhaps the messaging app with the most features.
It has its own Localization, QR code scanner, own Search Engine, News Feed, E-Wallet, WeChat Pay, Loans, Booking Rail and Flight Tickets, Movie Tickets, and many more to count over. But most of these features are available only in China as around 1 billion registered users of the messaging app are from the country.
4. Tencent QQ
QQ is one of the fastest-growing chatting apps right now. Released just after 11 months ago QQ has gained around 617 million uses. It took 5 years to reach that benchmark for Whatsapp and almost the same for WeChat. QQ has all features available in other popular instant apps. It also provides services like microblogging, online social games, and QQ coin.
Available in multi-platforms the instant messenger can share files of up to 1 GB in size as a single file and 2GB total by Qmail. You can also find QQ branded merchandise in the Chinese market. With all these mind-blowing features QQ is totally free.
5. Telegram
Telegram is the most secure instant messenger among the popular chatting apps. The secret call is the most distinctive feature of the instant messenger. It also has a secret chat. With the rise of cybersecurity awareness and want of privacy, chat apps like the Telegram that offer secrecy are gaining more and more appreciation from users.
This app allows you to share unlimited images and files of 2GB in size. Telegram became the highest downloaded app in January 2021. The app is available on almost every platform. Like other top messaging apps Telegram is also free and it's free of ads unlike many. It has over 500 million users now.
Best Team Chat Apps
6. Google Chat
Google Chat provides advanced team chat features. It was developed as an instant messenger for teams to connect. Formerly it was called Hangouts Chat. recently it has launched a consumer account. Currently, it is available for Google Workplace customers. it allows users Workspace content sharing.
Google Chat is available on Android, iOS, Web. It's freemium, both free and premium features are available. Up to 150 people can join in a conference call on google chat. It has English, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Filipino, Finnish, French, German, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, and some more languages available.
7. Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams is now one of the most used team chat platforms worldwide. In 2020, as a reflection of the pandemic, the platform gained more than ever attention and reported to have over 115 million daily users. It has features like Chats, Group Chat, File Sharing, Channels, Teams Live Events, and some other features.
Microsoft Teams users can set up channels. Channels are topics of conversation that allow team members to communicate without the use of email or group SMS (texting). Users can reply to posts with text as well as images, GIFs, and custom-made memes. It is available in 181 countries and 19 languages. It is also a freemium product.
8. Slack
Slack is a proprietary business communication platform developed by Slack Technologies. Slack began as a feature for the Glitch, an online game. Its name means "Searchable Log of All Conversation and Knowledge". It was officially launched as a distinguished service in 2013. It has features like Teams, Messaging, Integrations, and API.
Slack has over 12 million daily active users on the platform. It has over 750,000 customer organizations and 156,000 of them are paying customers. It is available on iOS, Android, Windows, and macOS. Slack integrates with third-party services including Google Drive, GitHub, Dropbox, Zendesk. Slack is also available for the Apple Watch.
9. Discord
Discord was launched on May 13, 2015. It was designed for creating communities. Starting as a videogame community, the platform has grown to a multi-niche community. It has over 250 million active users across the globe. The discord app has over 150 million monthly users. The platform is getting more and more interest. It has Audio Chat, Clubhouse App, Clubhouse IOS, and other interesting features.
On 2nd April, it introduced the feature Stage Channels. According to them with this feature users can have a conversation with select listeners. Discord doesn't have ads rather they have premium features that users can buy. The service is available in Web browsers, iOS, Android, Linux, iOS, macOS, and Windows. It is available
10. Chanty
Chanty is an AI-powered team chat platform. It is also one of the latest team chat applications. It has features like Teambook, Threads, Audio & Video Calls, Multiple Social Media Content, Chanty is designed to boost collaboration and reduce the time a team spends on emails, meetings, and communication with colleagues.
Chanty has Unlimited message history, Unlimited conversations, Unlimited tasks, Instant search for messages, files, and other content. It can integrate with 10 different third-party services. The team chat is available in iOS, Android, Windows, macOS, and the web. Chanty offers a freemium pricing plan.
Most Secure Messaging Apps
11. Signal
Signal was founded in 2014. It was initially founded by one of the WhatsApp co-founders Brian Acton. Today it has become one of the most used messengers with over 100 million downloads and over 40 million monthly active users. The Signal app is a successor to the early encrypted voice calling apps. It is still running as a non-profit foundation. It's free.
The end-to-end encrypted instant messaging app has the reputation of Gold standard of messaging security by leading Cryptographers including Edward Snowden and cybersecurity measurements from US congress, and even the European Commission. With regular features of all messaging apps, it also offers special security features like Disappearing messages and Password security. Signal is known to be the most secure chatting app.
12. Dust
Dust is another secure messaging platform. It was formerly known as Cyber Dust. According to Dust "You can erase your messages off other people’s phones. No messages are permanently stored on phones or servers. Messages are heavily encrypted and not accessible to anyone, even us." Users can send secure messages with the app what the app calls Dust. There is another feature called “Blasts”, that allows you to send the same message to a group of people which they can see privately. It is known to have an impressive user interface.
Dust messenger has all the common features of a chat app. It has voice calls, video calls, and disappearing one-time messages like Snapchat. But it doesn't allow the user to take screenshots of the message, unlike Snapchat. By 2021 the secure messenger is available on iOS, Android, and Windows. Blast has a wide range of new stickers and it's totally free.
13. Wickr Me
Wickr is a secure messaging and voice calling app. It has two versions one is free and for personal use called the Wickr Me and another one are the paid and for business Wickr pro. Wickr Pro is probably the most secure voice and video calling app. It also offers Voice and Video Conferencing for pro users.
Wickr Me is not perhaps not the best app to share files, but with Wickr Pro users can share files of up to 1GB on the free plan and up to 5GB for a paid plan. It allows sharing large video files. While Wickr Me provides great security for one-to-one communications, Wickr Pro is for business organizations. Wickr is the only collaboration service with full functionality to meet all security criteria outlined by the National Security Agency. It is available for iOS, Android, desktop.
Earliaer mentioned WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and Telegram is also known to have great security protocols.
Best App For Free Video Calls
14. Skype
Skype is the largest video calling platform with over 100 million people, active users, every month. It runs on every available platform including Android, Apple Mac, iOS, Linux, Xbox. This Microsoft-owned service is available almost in every country. users need to sign up for a Skype account.
Founded in 2003, Skype is one of the earliest distinguished video calling services available. At once 50 people can join on a skype conference call in the free version. It has a great feature of blurring the background of the video. Skype uses proprietary Internet telephony (VoIP) network called the Skype protocol. Skype for Business lets you add up to 250 people to online meetings, provides enterprise-grade security, allows you to manage employee accounts, and is integrated into your Office apps.
15. IMO Video Chat
IMO is a free audio/video calling and instant messaging software service. There are over 200 million users of the instant messaging app. It was a messaging aggregator in its earlier days. IMO is popular for its video calling service. It is free and simple. The chatting app has new features like Group Video and Audio Chats.
IMO has features like Big Group, IMO Zones, IMO Live Streaming. You can create group chats of up to 100,000 members on the app. The messaging service is available for Android, iOS, Windows, and macOS. IMO has the story feature too. It supports Concurrent sessions. File sharing is easy and faster than many other services.
16. ZOOM Cloud Meetings
Zoom is one of the trending techs from 2020. It was launched in 2013, and by 2020 it has become one of the most widely used and dependable video calling and video conferencing mediums in the world. The main features of the video calling service are Meetings and Chat, Video Webinars, With zoom you can customize your background picture.
With updated search options it's easy to find contacts, messages, files, or chat channels on zoom. It has both free and premium plans. The free plan allows the user to host up to 100 participants in a personal meeting and Unlimited one-on-one Meetings. ZOOM UNITED BUSINESS is the highest-end plan. Zoom gives a unique id to every user singed in and this ID allows them to host and join meetings.
17. BAND - App for all groups
Band is a great tool for group communication. The app has gained over 2.5 million users by 2020. It allows existing real-life groups of friends or co-workers to work together from their own locations. It has features like broadcasting, attendance check, voting, and group call online. It is a secure group communication application.
Band is available in English, Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Spanish, Thai, Vietnamese. The group social messaging is available for iOS, Android, Windows, and Mac. BAND is a popular social app in Korea whose number of monthly active users surpassed that of Facebook by June 2014.
Microsoft Teams, Google Chat, Signal is also great for making video calls.
Best Apps To Chat Anonymously
18. Psst
If you want to chat and connect with people without being recognized and totally keeping your anonymity safe Psst is a good option for you. With this secret chatting app, one can be a part of an anonymous social network like no other. You can post and share anything without sharing your identity. Posts on Psst stay active for 48 hours then disappear forever. This app connects people with the same interests without publishing their identity.
It has features like Delete on Read, ID Masking, Identity-less private chat. Psst keeps no log, no sent items, and also has a message timer selectable 1 to 30 secs. It has a feed that is different in the sense that you never know who you're following and they don't know you're following them! It has a shaking lock, that keeps anyone off from sneaking up what the user is talking about. Though the app is incredibly focused on keeping the user's identity safe it's easy to use.
19. Chatous
On Chatous, you can chat with people from all over the world about the topics you care about. All messages and conversations are private and anonymous. It regularly deletes the history of conversation and chat. It's available for both desktop computers and mobile devices.
Chatous was launched in 2012. It allows users to send files and text messages. Display names cant be searched on the platform. it has a video chat platform and shares expiring photos, videos, and audio messages. Overall it is a social discovery platform through conversation.
20. Omegle
Omegle is a free online chat website that allows users to socialize with others without the need to register. The popular platform was launched on March 25, 2009. In 2010 it introduced the video conferencing feature. Chatting on Omegle is completely anonymous. The platform's video and audio quality are great.
Omegle has Online chat, Voice chat, and Video chat features. It actually pairs random visitors. Its chat and video chats were questioned for less monitoring now it removes rule violators permanently.
Combine messages and messenger
One may be using multiple apps and platforms to be connected with friends and works. It always a hustle to keep track of all chatting apps at once. There are some applications and services that allow the user to combine all messaging apps into one platform. Here are some of them.
21. Shift
Shift is a platform that can combine all messaging and chatting apps into one app. It makes it easy to check all messages without opening multiple tabs for each. Shift was founded on the belief that managing multiple workflows should be simple and beautiful. With this users can connect all of the needed favorite apps.
Shift is a freemium service. It is free for personal users and has different premium plans for businesses. It has features like Archiving & Retention, File Sharing, Signature Management, Project Management, Collaboration Tools, and Shared Inboxes. There is a chrome extension of the service. According to the official website of the company, Shift makes work more productive, and fun.
22. IM+
With IM+ users can combine their Twitter, Google Talk, Telegram, Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, Skype, and more accounts into one platform. IM+ is available for Windows, Android, Mac, Linux, and iPhone. it has P2P encrypted messaging. It has crypto-related features.
IM+ supports multiple accounts per service and has Advanced ad-blocking. It has fast file-sharing options. It doesn't show any push notifications. It's free for personal use and has premium features. It has no integration limits, users can connect with unlimited numbers of accounts. It has its own audio and video calling feature.
23. All-In-One Messenger
All-In-One Messenger is one app for all communication services. This message integration application allows the user to use WhatsApp, Telegram, Messenger, Skype, Gmail and many more in one app. It customizable, and supports more than 50+ messengers. The application is available for android, windows, and macOS.
All-In-One Messenger has Dark Mode and Tab Theme options. Users can decide which apps to keep running in the background. It supports all the languages available on the chatting applications it is integrated with. Its features are Access to social apps with one click, Statistics on the usage of apps, Quick visit Lite App and others.
Offline Chatting Apps
24. Briar
Briar is an open-source software communication technology. It provides secure and resilient peer-to-peer communications without any centralized servers and minimal reliance on external infrastructure. This communication technology was designed especially for activists, journalists, and civil society.
Briar is created with Mesh networking Mesh networks can relay messages using either a flooding technique or a routing technique. In this messaging app, messages are stored securely on your device, not in the cloud. Briar is free. Briar uses direct, encrypted connections between users to prevent surveillance and censorship.
25. Bridgefy
Bridgefy is an offline messaging app that lets you communicate with friends without an internet connection. The application uses a Bluetooth connection instead of the internet. After installing the app users have to turn on Bluetooth and it detects other users around. The app is considered useful for music festivals, sports stadiums, rural communities, natural disasters, traveling abroad, and much more.
Users must remember all communications through Bluetooth are insecure, since it does not use cryptography at all and anyone can trivially intercept, read, and modify any information sent via the app.
26. F Chat
F Chat is another mash technology-powered app that allows sending text and images without Internet access or cellular data. It has a range of 200 feet to connect with another user. It is known to have a stronger connection. The network is private and your messages are secure. Fire chat has features like stories, free voice calls, fingerprint lock. It is available for android only. And it's free.
27. Signal Offline Messenger
Signal offline messenger is a Wifi Direct based offline messaging app. It has a group chat service. It is often referred to as the best offline chat application on the market right now. Signal allows you to send audio, text, photo, and video messages to users around you over wifi direct.
Signal offline messenger can share large files with good speed. It may be the best option for Cruise ship, wild life safari, foreign trip with family, or when you run out of your data pack. It can Instantly send messages, audio, and photos to anyone around you over wifi direct. The signal app on start-up sends a signal to discover nearby devices.
28. Vojer
Vojer is the best option for offline messaging for iOS users. Vojer creates a secure and reliable mesh network around the user for anonymous peer-to-peer micro-interactions. You can message both text and photo with the offline chatting app. Vogler is a paid app. Vojer is known to be Fast, Secure, Reliable, Private, and Anonymous. One of the greatest plus points is the app is small in size(1.6 MB).
Taking The Decision
We tried to give you a preview of almost all popular and most used messaging and chatting apps. Every year some new chat apps are launched and some of them get wild popularity while some of them remain unknown to most of us. All apps and services we discussed here are based on their websites, popular reviews about the apps, and many other information sources.
Though this gives you a sneak peek about many chatting apps you must check which platform or what app is best for you before finally sending your message. Again thanks for reading.