Signal vs Telegram which is Better – By early 2022, Signal and Telegram were at the top of the app store service provider ladder.
Both chat apps promise more privacy than WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, and SMS. But there are some big differences between the two. Here’s what you should know and which you should use.
What do Signal and Telegram have in common
Signal vs Telegram both advertise themselves as private and secure. None of the big tech companies have. Signal is owned by a non-profit organization, while Telegram is owned by a non-profit company.
Both Signal and Telegram are chat apps with all the standard features, from stickers to photo and file transfers to voice and video calls.
Signal and Telegram both offer apps for iPhone, iPad, and Android. Each one is free, and you only need a phone number to register. Both offer optional desktop applications so you can chat on your Windows PC, Mac, or Linux system, giving you the option to chat on your computer with a full keyboard.
Signal Has Better Privacy Features Than Telegram
Singal was built from the ground up for privacy, and it shows. All conversations and other communications on Signal are end-to-end encrypted between the devices running Signal.
The company in charge of Signal, the Signal Foundation, can’t even see your messages if it wants to.
Telegram offers optional end-to-end encryption. You have to start “Secret Chat”. On Signal, everything is secret chat by default, and always has been.
All Telegram messages are encrypted between you and Telegram servers, but the company responsible for Telegram can technically see your messages on its servers if you wish unless you start a “Secret Chat”.
Also, on Telegram, you cannot have a “Secret Chat” group. You can only get end-to-end encryption in a conversation between two people. Unlike Telegram, Signal offers encrypted group chats.
All your Signal conversations are only saved on your device by default. In Telegram, they are stored on the Telegram servers and can be synced between your devices.
(You can still use Signal between multiple devices and sync messages from one device to another. But you can’t just go to Signal on the web and find all your conversations there.)
Signal is completely open-source both the code for the Signal client and the code for the Signal server can be found on GitHub. The code for the Telegram app is open source, but the Telegram server software is not open source.
Some security researchers argue that Signal’s encryption protocol is better and more resilient than Telegram’s MTProto encryption protocol, although this is a complicated and contentious topic.
The Signal app was developed by the Signal Foundation, a non-profit organization founded by donations. Telegram is run by a non-profit company and has struggled with various plans to make money, including an ill-fated cryptocurrency offering.
Signal also has other built-in features around privacy, including the ability to automatically blur faces in photos you send.
Read also – How to Use Stickers in the Signal App
Telegram Has Some Signals Doesn’t Offer
While Signal has clear advantages when it comes to privacy, Telegram offers a variety of convenience features that Signal doesn’t have.
On Telegram, you can have up to 200,000 people in a group chat. On Signal, you can only have up to 1000 people. On Telegram, you can transfer files up to 2 GB in size. In Signal, you can only transfer files up to 100 MB in size.
Telegram offers cloud message synchronization you can even log into Telegram on the web and continue your conversation. That’s a tradeoff unlike in Signal.
Where all your conversations are stored locally on your device, all conversations are stored on Telegram servers. Unless you start a “Secret Chat”.
Telegram lets you add bots to conversations, but this means the conversations you add bots to have more private encryption.
Signal does not have bots that can interact with conversations, ensuring privacy but not giving you the option to use bots.
Overall, the Telegram app also has a shinier interface, with more sticker packs available, animated stickers, and customizable background images for your conversations. Starting January 11, 2022, Signal is on work to add many of these features.
Signals vs. Telegram: Which Should You Use?
If you are serious about maximum privacy for your communications, you should choose Signal. It was built from the ground up to be as comfortable as possible by default. It’s clear why (in early January 2022) Signal beat Telegram in the App Store charts.
If some features of Telegram appeal to you for example, if you want bots, very large group chats or larger file transfers, that’s a good argument for using Telegram.
Maybe you’re fine storing all your conversations on a cloud server for convenience, but you just want to stay away from Facebook that’s a good argument for using Telegram.
Of course, which service you end up using depends on which service your friends, family, coworkers, and other people you want to talk to are using.
You might even use both to talk to different people. Feel free to try both.
In the end, Signal or Telegram beat WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger in terms of privacy. There are no apps linked to Facebook, like WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger.
Both Signal and WhatsApp are much more secure than SMS, allowing your mobile carrier to see every message you send.
Of course, Signal and Telegram change over time and get new features. It’s worth doing your own research and playing around with them to see which one you prefer.
For privacy-focused users, the big difference is that everything is always end-to-end encrypted on Signal, whereas Telegram offers end-to-end encryption as an optional feature that you have to get rid of in order to use it.
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