Install Rocket.Chat on your Desktop, Mobile or Server. Take your conversations with you and never miss the action with our mobile apps for iOS and Android. You can create a video chat room via Facebook or the Messenger app and invite up to 50 people to join a video call - even if they don't have a Facebook account. There are no time limits on calls.
That’s right, Apple’s Messages app for Mac is compatible with Facebook Chat thanks to the social network’s decision to use Jabber, and Apple’s Messaging app supporting Jabber. While this article is mainly about the best Facebook desktop apps for Windows and Mac, I cannot help but list Messenger Lite (formerly Lite Messenger) for Facebook. It’s an Android app that manages chats much better than Facebook’s own chat program. You can check news and notifications too, so it isn’t all about the chat.
Just running a search for the term ‘chat apps’ or ‘video chat’ or ‘messenger apps’ inside the Play Store or the iTunes Store will serve you up hundreds of different options. We scoured the web, installed countless apps and compiled the best mobile messaging apps for your smartphone for both Android and iOS for 2020.
In this blog article, we look at 16 of this year’s top chat apps and give our thoughts on each one.
#1. Yabb Messenger
Alright, we may be a little biased here but we think Yabb Instant Messenger is one of the best new all-in-one social networking chat apps on the market for Android and iOS. It’s loaded with features so you can communicate however you want, whether it be a voice call, video call, group chat, whatever.
Yabb’s Features
Yabb Instant Messenger is available on Android and iOS#2. WhatsApp
At the time of this writing, WhatsApp is one of the most popular chat apps on Android and iOS connecting more than a billion humans. This is a staggering number of people all using one app not just to talk but to share multimedia media as well.
What we like
What we don’t like
Some of WhatsApp’s Features
#3. Telegram
With millions of users on the Telegram platform it’s one of the more popular messaging apps but it’s mostly known for its solid end-to-end encryption which keeps your messages and calls private. There are others on this list that challenge Telegrams claims about its ability to keep users communication truly private.
What we like:
• Chat data is synchronized without any limitations across all devices and operating systems
• Good intuitive design and user interface • Flexible security options • Some good customizations • No limit on file size sharing What we don’t like:![]()
• No video calling option
• The contact list is based on phone numbers and requires contact permissions on mobile devices. • Voice calls weren’t as good as some other apps but that have been a connection issue? • Search function needs improvement can be a little tedious to find what you want Some of Telegram’s Features:
• Store chat history in the cloud
• 256-bit symmetric AES encryption, 2048-bit RSA encryption, and Diffie-Hellman secure key exchange • Stickers and GIFs • photo and video editing • Group chat for up to 100,000 people #4. GroupMe
GroupMe is a text messaging app that allows you to send group texts. How is this different from sending a group text on your mobile phone?
When you send a group text using your texting feature on your smartphone you’re really only sending a bunch of individual texts, there is no group conversation happening. With GroupMe, every message you send out can be seen by everyone and everyone can join in the conversation even if they don’t have the GroupMe messenger app installed on their phone.
What we like
What we don’t like
Some of GroupMe’s Features
#5. Line
Line is battling for ultimate supremacy in the VoIP space against big names like WhatsApp and Viber. This messenger app offers good voice and video capabilities and has a solid following in Asia.
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Line also steps outside of just calling by offering emoticons, stickers, group messaging and the ability to share multiple media amongst other Line users, basically it’s a social media channel like Facebook and Twitter.
What we like
What we don’t like
Some of Line’s Features
Facebook Mac Chat App Download#6. WeChat
WeChat was developed in China back in 2011 and now is a global social media app. Since going viral has gone on to become a serious competitor to WhatsApp and Viber with 100’s of millions of users around the world.
Voice calls are interesting because they are in half-duplex which means that it works like a walkie-talkie, you start a voice message by pushing a button, WeChat records that message and then sends it over to the recipient.
What we like
What we don’t’ like
Some of WeChat’s Features
#7. Kakao Talk (KaTalk)
Kakao Talk is sometimes referred to as the Korean-WhatsApp.
What is it? It’s a social app that showcases a lot of the familiar features we’ve all come to expect from similar chat apps in this genre, like voice and video calling, instant messaging, location sharing, group text messages to name a few.
Although it has a strong user-base of over 150 million people it is most popular in Korea so if you’re living in the west you not know anyone who is already using it. That said, if you’re planning a trip to Korea this is the only chat app they use so it’s a must-have.
What we like
What we don’t like
Some of KaKaoTalk’s Features
#8. Kik Messenger
Kik is a cross-platform instant chat app that can do much of the same things as similar apps in its category like one-to-one or group texting.
Unlike a lot of its competitors, Kik doesn’t require a phone number but lets you set up an account with your email address.
Kik allows you to send and receive messages from other Kik users and simulates real text messaging but uses your Wi-Fi connection instead. This is especially great if you are on a plan with limited texting credits, just use your data or find a Wi-Fi area and you’re texting is free.
What we like
What we don’t like
Some of Kik’s features
#9. Tango
Another well-known name inside the highly competitive instant messenger space comes Tango. It doesn’t try to master and go deep with one feature like Instagram did with photo sharing or what Snapchat did with disappearing messages.
Tango is arguably one of the most popular ‘all-in-one’ social chat apps on the market and rightly so, it comes packed a good number of features like voice and video group chat, messaging, sharing multimedia, playing games, sending music to friends to name only a few of its core features.
What we like
What we don’t like
Some of Tango’s FeaturesFacebook App For Mac Pro
#10. Facebook Messenger
Facebook Messenger is one of the most popular instant chat apps with over 1.3 billion users –that’s a lot.
What we like
What we don’t like
Some of Facebook Messenger’s Features
#11. Google Hangouts
Google is known for keeping things simple and Hangouts seems to follow that tradition. It’s simple in design and fairly intuitive if you’ve never used it before it doesn’t take you long to figure how to send messages or start a video call. For simple chatting, it’s a great option with the only downside being that it can lag especially in group video situations so you and your team will need a reliable and strong internet connection.
What we like
What we don’t like
Some of the Google Hangouts’ features
#12. Group FaceTime
Apple’s Group FaceTime for iPhone and iPad supports up to 32 people on a single call and offers a very smooth and intuitive experience.
It offers Animojis, text and other cool designs which you can access using the little star on the left-hand side.
Group FaceTime still works for older versions of the iPhone but you won’t get access to the same special effects while on the call.
What we like
What we don’t like
Some of FaceTime’s Features
#13. Snapchat
Snapchat is really about capturing moments in real-time and it does this very well. Instead of sending away a text message about someone doing something, just whip out your phone and take a snap it says so much more than a text message could.
This visual approach has made it a valuable marketing tool for businesses to send visual promotions to their customers or for influencers to grow their audiences and personal brand.
What we like
What we dislike
Some of Snapchat’s features
#14. Skype
Skype has been around for a long time and it was the first video chatting software that I used to make calls with. One of the best things about Skype is that it’s cross-platform so you can begin a conversation on your computer and finish it on your mobile. Not only that but for a small fee you can use it to call landlines and mobile phones.
What we like
What we don’t like
Some of Skypes features
#15. Viber Messenger
Viber is one of the most popular instant chat apps on the market but will likely always live inside the shadow of Skype and WhatsApp. That said, Viber (Rakuten) is not a small player in fact according to Statistica Viber Messenger has more than 1 billion registered users globally in 193 countries so the chances of people you know using this app are going to pretty good.
What we like
What we dislike
Some of Viber’s features
#16. Nimbuzz
Nimbuzz messenger was recently acquired by Mara Social Media group and has over 200 million registered users. It packs a lot of the same features that you would already be familiar with like voice calls, conference calls, messaging, chat rooms etc. this is all packaged up inside a clean nice looking app.
What we like
What we didn’t like
Some of Nimbuzz’s Features
#17. Voxer Walkie Talkie Messenger
I remember back in 2005 while working for Vodafone there was a mobile phone we had featured push-to-talk technology (i.e. works like a walkie talkie), I think it was Motorola and it sold really well until the new 3G video calling phones hit the market and Voxer re-introduces Push-To-Talk again…but better.
One of the things that I didn’t expect when using this app was how useful it would be for work. With Voxer the team can send me voice messages and I can block out some time to answer them including sending media it’s been a nice addition for our team.
What we like
What we don’t like
Some of Voxer’s features
Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been chatting with my buddies on Google Hangouts and Facebook using this fantastic new Mac app called Flamingo. Flamingo is a gorgeous instant messaging app released today for Mac that lets you sign in with your Google Hangouts, Facebook or even XMPP accounts and see which of your buddies are online, add new ones & chat with them — all in a slick, native & modern interface.
Flamingo has been designed by Christian Dalonzo, best know for designing Stream for App.net and developed by Indragie Karunaratne, best known as the developer of Sonora — the beautiful music player for Mac. If you’ve tried their apps before, Flamingo’s amazingness shouldn’t come as a surprise to you at all. Not only is Flamingo intricately designed with modern interface elements and superb use of colors, it also features some fantastically executed animations and transitions that make it an absolutely delight to use.
Flamingo primarily uses a typical “three-pane” layout — the leftmost pane lists all your buddies from the services you’re currently signed in with, along with their statuses (online, idle, offline, etc.). When you double tap on a buddy to chat with him/her, the buddy appears in the center pane and the actual conversation is displayed in the right most pane. Of course, Flamingo doesn’t limit you to this layout. In the buddy list, Flamingo smartly collates your buddies who have accounts on multiple services into a single contact. For example, if John Doe has an account on both Facebook and Google Hangouts, Flamingo will just display him once under the “Unified” title. Flamingo’s smartness goes beyond this, as if while chatting with him, he logs off one one service, you can continue your conversation with him in the same window on the other service. At your end, the jump is transparent.
Flamingo’s layout is designed such that you’ll only see your buddy avatars by default. Only when you hover over the leftmost pane, it reveals their full names. At the bottom of this pane, you can search your buddy list or add a new buddy on any of the services. The middle pane lists all your active chats. By default, you can click on any of the active chats and the rightmost pane will display the conversation. However, you can also double click on any active chat to open it to the right of the rightmost conversation window. This way, you can have multiple conversations open in view at the same time. Not just that, you can drag out a conversation by holding it at the bottom left and have it as a standalone floating window. This is brilliant.
I love the way the duo has worked out the animations in the conversation view. When you send a message, the bubble slowly animates with the text you’ve sent, along with the timestamp for that message appearing on the left. Little things like these add to the overall delight when using the app. You can change from one service to another using the dropdown on the left here.
Download Facebook App For Mac
Flamingo also supports inline previews for services like Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Droplr & CloudApp. So any links from these services in your chat will instead be displayed as rich content. The app is already ready for OS X Mavericks and utilizes the Mavericks notifications’ feature letting you reply right from the notification bubble. Flamingo also supports File Transfers and full message search. It stores your entire conversation history, so it’s easy to lookup something via Flamingo (and it doesn’t Freeze like iMessage).
Facebook App For Mac Computer
Unfortunately, neither Google Hangouts, nor Facebook extend the group chat feature to client apps, so Flamingo only supports one-to-one conversations with your buddies. Moreover, the version I’ve been testing has been flaky at times, but the developers are also very responsive to feedback, which is always a good thing. Flamingo is a fantastic Mac app if you often chat via Hangouts, Facebook or XMPP. You can grab it from the Mac App Store for just $9.99.
Facebook Chat Mac App
Bonus: Look up @FlamingoforMac in the new Tweetbot 3 for iPhone and see how awesome their avatar looks in the timeline.
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