Group messaging apps are useful communication tools for getting in touch with several people at once. They’re also a good way to share information, make decisions, and even manage a project.
Here is a list of messaging apps. There are apps for simple group messaging, and there are also apps for advanced team collaboration, integrated with a variety of productivity tools to run a project or business.
Group Messaging Apps
GroupMe
GroupMe lets you chat with everyone, via push or SMS, whether you’re talking to a group of friends, or texting with one person. Add anyone from your phone book, and they can immediately chat with the group. Easily mute groups for some quiet or until you have a meeting. Founded in 2010, inspired by a project from the TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon, GroupMe is part of Skype. Available for Android and iOS. Price: Free.
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WhatsApp is a free messaging and voiceover IP platform owned by Facebook that has more than 1.5 billion monthly active users. It also offers WhatsApp Business to connect with customers with group chats, share messages, photos, and videos with up to 256 people at once. You can also name your group, mute or customize notifications, and more. Send PDFs, documents, spreadsheets, and slideshows. Available for Android and iOS. Price: Free.
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Telegram
Telegram is a messaging app with a focus on security and speed. Create group chats for up to 200,000 members, share large videos and documents of any type, and even set up bots for specific tasks. Private messages are encrypted and can self-destruct. Telegram servers are spread worldwide for security and speed. Available for Android and iOS. Price: Free.
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WeChat is a messaging and social media app from Tencent that has over 1 billion monthly active users. Create group chats with up to 500 members, and run group video calls with up to nine people. Send files up to 100 MB — PDFs, documents, spreadsheets, slideshows, and more — without the hassle of email or file-sharing apps. Use WeChat Pay and Wallet for transactions. Available for Android and iOS. Price: Free.
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Facebook Messenger
Facebook Messenger is a communications app to contact individuals and groups. Run chats and video calls to groups. Send reactions and GIFs. When text isn’t enough, hit record and send a voice message. Add filters, masks, and effects to your video chats. Send and receive money in the app. Suggest a meeting spot or show where you are by sharing your location. Available for Android and iOS. Price: Free.
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Signal
Signal is a communication app that’s focused on security. Send quality group, text, voice, video, document, and picture messages anywhere in the world without SMS or MMS fees. Signal messages and calls are always end-to-end encrypted. Choose different disappearing message intervals for each conversation. Everyone in the thread shares the same setting. Available for Android and iOS. Price: Free.
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Hangouts
Hangouts is Google’s app for group chats of 150 people or less. Turn any conversation into a free group video call with up to 10 friends. Add to the conversation with status messages, photos, emoji, stickers, and animated GIFs. Easily share your current location with any conversation with the map integration. Connect your Google Voice account for phone number, SMS, and voicemail integration. Available for Android and iOS. Price: Free.
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Team Chat Apps
Slack
Slack is a team chat app with a large assortment of features and integrations. Conversation channels can be divvied by team, project, and client. Members can join and leave as needed. Share channels with companies and businesses you regularly work with. Talk it out over voice or video calls directly from Slack. Share your screen as needed. Drag and drop PDFs, images, videos, and other files directly into Slack. Available for Android and iOS. Price: Free for up to three users. Premium plans start at $8 per month.
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Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams is a chat app for meetings and documents. Run group chat, online meetings, audio and video calls, and web-conferencing for up to 10,000 people. Get features such as scheduling assistance, note-taking, screen sharing, meeting recording, and instant messaging. Collaborate on files with built-in Office 365 apps such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Add Microsoft apps and third-party services. Available for Android and iOS. Price: Free for up to 300 users. Premium plans start at $5 per month.
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Mattermost
Mattermost is a self-hosted messaging platform that lets you maintain full control of data and safeguard against security breaches. It features group chat or direct messaging, conversations in channels, searchable message history, audio and video, screen sharing, file sharing, and more. Mattermost is suitable for small companies and departments with data security requirements. Available for Android and iOS. Price: Starts at $3.25 per user per month.
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Chatwork
Chatwork is a collaboration platform for individuals and teams. Chatwork offers direct and group chat, searchable by keywords. It also offers task management, file sharing, video chat, contact management, email and push notifications, user management, and more. Available for Android and iOS. Price: Free for up to 14 group chats. Premium plans start at $4 per user per month.
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Ryver
Ryver is an app that integrates team communication, team task management, and workflow automation. Create channels for large forums, groups, or individuals. Collaborate via chat, topic-threaded chats, and voice and video calls with screen sharing. Turn conversations into trackable tasks in a powerful task manager. Automate tasks using Workflow. Automatically receive social media posts, news articles, and RSS feed content. Available for Android and iOS. Price: Plans start at $49 per month for up to 12 users.
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Twist
Twist is a communication app for teams who want “a calmer, more organized, more productive workplace.” With single-topic and clearly titled threads, Twist keeps all your team’s conversations on point and builds a browsable and searchable knowledge base. Twist is from Doist, the group behind Todoist. Available for Android and iOS. Price: Free for one month of messages and up to five integrations. Premium is $5 per user per month.
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Flock
Flock is another messaging app to manage a project. Create a channel and get everyone’s input. Use a private channel for focused discussions or a public one for team members to discover and join. Launch a video call within a chat or channel, and share your screen for details. Access a suite of collaboration tools — shared to-dos, polls, rich note sharing, reminders, and more. Drag and drop files of all types. Add guests on Flock, and specify the chats and channels they can access. Available for Android and iOS. Price: Free for small teams, with search up to 10,000 messages. Pro is $4.50 per user per month.
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Zoho Cliq
Zoho Cliq is a team collaboration tool with searchable conversations, voice and video calls, task management, workflow automation, data encryption, and more. Run conversations with channels. Use the “Fork From Here” message action to create ad-hoc group-chats contextually. Search messages, files, and links in any conversation. Get real-time updates from third-party applications. Turn messages into work items, and more. Available for Android and iOS. Price: Free for up to 100 users per channel. Premium plan starts at $2.70 per user per month for up to 10 users.
