Published on November 17th, 2015 | by Guest
0Which is better – Facebook Messenger or WhatsApp?
The race between the two
Around 79 percent of the instant messaging market is under the control of WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. Now that Mark Zuckerberg has bought WhatsApp for 19 billion dollars, a large percentage of the IM world is under his control. Both the applications co-exist, with Zuckerberg having no intention of alternating the layout of WhatsApp. His only reason to buy it was that he considered it a great company with more than half a billion people using and loving the app on a daily basis. Both these applications do not just cater to the people who love instant messaging, but also the ones who love voice calling. Facebook, however, wins the race by providing a little more options than are available on WhatsApp, some of which will be discussed in this guest post.
The subscription costs
The Facebook Messenger does not require a subscription fee and is free of cost. It can easily be downloaded via the App Store or Google Play Store. All you need to do is log in with your Facebook ID and password and you are good to go. You can even enter your phone number while logging in so that your phone contacts will be synced with the Facebook contacts. WhatsApp, however, generates revenue by extracting an amount of 0.99 US dollars per year from the users after one year of free usage and download. Other than the length of the service, there is not a difference between the paid and free versions of WhatsApp. Facebook in this sense wins the case.
The user interface
The user interface of WhatsApp is quite functional, but certainly needs to be lifted up a notch as it seems quite out dated. The area of design is where this application lacks as all the options on WhatsApp seem cheap and cluttered due to its dated interface. Had it been its first year, this could have been disregarded, but after being on the forefront for years, WhatsApp needs to redesign its layout at the earliest. However, an exact opposite of it is the Facebook Messenger due to its slick blue and white theme and an organized user interface it has makes the experience much worthwhile. Even within the contact list, there is a demarcation of users that are online via the chat client of the Facebook website and users that are using the Messenger. This round is once again won by none other than the Facebook Messenger.
The other notable features
The features that are made available on WhatsApp are the image, video and audio sharing options, along with the ability to send location updates to the other users in the contact list, as well as sharing the contact details with the other contacts on WhatsApp. Facebook Messenger also offers the options of image, video and audio sharing, with the exception of being lesser rich in the features of video sharing and sharing of location updates. Therefore, in this case, WhatsApp surely wins. If you are running a business, whatsapp business API can result highly beneficial for you as it allows automatic reply and receiving messages from customers.
What matters the most in choosing any of the IM supporting clients other than the above stated features is that we switch to those apps, which are actually preferred by the people on our contact list.
Author Bio:
Katy Ciara is the author of this guest post. She also happens to be a technology freak, apart from writing articles related to technology for I Need an Essay. Her insight is quite valuable that concerns the field of IT specifically.