WhatsApp is currently the largest messaging service in the world with over 2 billion monthly active users and it is followed by Telegram with about 400 million. Signal boasts active account of 10-20 million monthly active users. Looking at the raw numbers, it’s clear that WhatsApp is wildly popular and almost ubiquitous while Telegram is catching up and Signal seems to have just joined the million downloads race. With that said, numbers don’t tell you everything and that’s why we bring you a detailed comparison between WhatsApp vs Telegram vs Signal vs Facebook’s Messenger.
Facebook and WhatsApp collect a significant amount of personal data from users, and this is especially apparent when compared with competing applications.
Telegram, which purports to offer greater privacy as well as end-to-end encryption, collects far less personal data.
Another privacy-focused messaging app that has been touted as a competitor to WhatsApp is Signal – which collects no personal information and runs on an open-source encryption framework, with your messages and data stored locally.
To demonstrate the differences in personal data collection between these different services, we have listed how these services broadly handle user data according to Apple’s Privacy labels in the infographic below.
WhatsApp vs Telegram vs Signal vs Messenger Personal Data Collected by Apps
Data linked to you | Telegram | Signal | ||
Contact Info | Yes | Yes | Yes | – |
Contacts | Yes | Yes | Yes | – |
Identifiers | Yes | Yes | Yes | – |
Purchases | Yes | Yes | – | – |
Financial Info | Yes | Yes | – | – |
Location | Yes | Yes | – | – |
User Content | Yes | Yes | – | – |
Usage Data | Yes | Yes | – | – |
Diagnostics | Yes | Yes | – | – |
Health and Fitness | Yes | – | – | – |
Search History | Yes | – | – | – |
Browsing History | Yes | – | – | – |
Sensitive Info | Yes | – | – | – |
Other Data | Yes | – | – | – |