These days, not a lot of people communicate through traditional SMS text messaging. After all, it offers limited features and functionalities that make communicating with friends and family unexciting. It became even less popular with the release of free Android messaging apps like Telegram, WhatsApp, LINE, and more, as these apps not only allowed you to communicate with other people across the world for free, you can even send files such as images and videos with them. Some apps even allow you to call other people and converse that way.
These messaging apps allow you to do so much without requiring you to pay SMS and call fees—no wonder they’re so popular now! In this article, we’ll list down the top 8 messaging apps you can download on your Android device, giving you more ways to communicate with your family, friends, and even workmates.
Top 8 Messaging Apps for Android
#1: Signal
These days, with so much of our information posted online, security has become a real issue. When chatting with someone about something confidential, it can be scary to think that your conversation could be leaked or that someone else is spying on your messages. These are completely valid fears, which is why there are messaging apps like Signal for security-conscious individuals. Signal has end-to-end encryption, which ensures that everything remains private. Signal also has a feature wherein your messages disappear after a few minutes if you want to be extra secure.
#2: Facebook Messenger
Facebook Messenger is perhaps one of the most popular messaging apps on this list, and unsurprisingly so, since it’s the dedicated messaging platform for the one and only Facebook. Facebook is one of the top social media platforms, so it doesn’t come as a surprise that many people use Messenger to communicate with their friends.
Facebook Messenger has loads of features, such as file sharing functionalities, voice messages, voice and video calls, filters, and more. You can even share your location with other people you’re chatting with if you’re trying to show them where you are at that specific moment.
#3: BAND
If you’re looking for something more casual, there’s a messaging app known as BAND that you’ll surely love. BAND was optimized for more informal groups, so it’s the perfect place to communicate with friends, study groups, family, etc. Plus, it’s great for coordinating events and gatherings, as you can create custom group chats as well as broadcast announcements via a community board for all to see.
#4: Slack
Mobile messaging apps aren’t just for casual conversations with friends and family, though. You can also use it as a platform to communicate with business associates or your team from work. If you want a messaging app that helps you become more productive at work, Slack has various features to help you with that, including management tools, scheduling, messaging, app integration, and even voice calls. You can also sync Slack with other devices in case you have multiple, so you’ll be sure to remain updated with your tasks even when you brought a different device with you.
For convenience and organization, Slack features something called channels, wherein you can create subgroups for specific tasks or topics. It allows everything to become more coordinated and clean and definitely less confusing.
#5: Blackberry Messenger
BlackBerry devices are no longer as popular as they once were; however, we can’t say the same thing for its messaging platform called BlackBerry Messenger or BBM Enterprise. It offers security and real-time conversations, and it focuses more on business and collaboration. Just like other messaging platforms, you can chat with someone 1:1, and it even features read receipts so you’ll know when the person you’re talking to has already opened and read your message.
#6: Microsoft Teams
If you’re looking for something that focuses more on collaboration, you might also want to check out Microsoft Teams. If your university or workplace already uses Microsoft Office 365, you should have easy access to this productivity app. With Microsoft Teams, you can organize and collaborate on different documents and files. It also offers group chat capabilities and video and voice calls to make everything much easier in terms of communication.
#7: Viber
Viber is perhaps the next leading messaging app next to Facebook Messenger. Thousands, if not millions of people, have downloaded and currently use this messaging app. It’s easy to create an account because the app uses and syncs with your phone number, so you have easy access to your phone contacts who also have Viber on their phones. If you want to boost the SMS text messaging experience with stickers, file sharing, voice and video messages, and more, Viber is definitely the way to go.
#8: WhatsApp
Last but not least, we can’t write a list of the best messaging apps without mentioning WhatsApp. This messaging platform is full of incredible features that will make you want to keep talking to your friends the whole day. Like Viber, WhatsApp also syncs your phone contacts so you can converse with your friends and family if you’re unable to text them via SMS. WhatsApp is also fully encrypted, so you can rest assured that all your conversations are safe and secure.
Conclusion
If you’re tired of traditional SMS text messaging, these apps will take communication to a whole new level. These apps are available to download for free, and as long as you have an internet connection, you can enjoy sending and receiving files and stickers from your loved ones.
