Facebook Messenger
Ranked 12 of 48 messaging apps by recommenders
Recommended for chatting with friends and family, voice calls, and multi-device use. Main caveat: the desktop app and messenger.com are going away, and people doubt its message privacy.
Recommended for chatting with friends and family, voice calls, and multi-device use. Main caveat: the desktop app and messenger.com are going away, and people doubt its message privacy.
126 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 36
- criticize it
- 90
- approval share
- 29%
Recommended in 12 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 36 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 0.4 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 12 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Keeps in touch with friends and family
“The only reason why I didn't delete facebook is messenger, where I chat with old folks.”
Comment from 22 Feb 2026 in “Attention Media ≠ Social Networks” “I keep Messenger app to chat with my college peeps.”
Comment from 17 Feb 2026 in “Meta to retire messenger desktop app and messenger.com in April 2026” “messenger connecting people”
Comment from 30 May 2026 in “To have a moral stance on AI is to be an outcast, and it sucks” Voice calls with known contacts
“I use on Messenger and Whatsapp much more often for voice calls, and you know exactly who is calling.”
Comment from 11 Aug 2026 in “France to ban unsolicited telemarketing calls” “You could call your friends on messenger or WhatsApp”
Comment from 13 Oct 2026 in “Apple HomeView” Lets you avoid the main Facebook site
“messenger.com was nice if you've blocked the facebook.com domain to try to use less social media”
Comment from 17 Feb 2026 in “Meta to retire messenger desktop app and messenger.com in April 2026” “thank the heavens for this app which means I rarely need to open Facebook itself”
Comment from 11 Sep 2026 in “Shopify is moving from React Native back to Swift and Kotlin” “helped me to break from FB addiction”
Comment from 17 Feb 2026 in “Meta: Messenger.com is no longer available for messaging” Chat history syncs across devices
“I like FB Messenger because all the state is stored on there instead of being annoying about E2EE”
Comment from 13 Aug 2026 in “Facebook ads are so hard to block that uBlock Origin stopped filtering them” “all support multi-device and it's pretty convenient”
Comment from 15 Apr 2026 in “Peter Steinberger – WhatsApp CLI: sync, search, send”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Doubts about encryption and privacy
“nobody should believe for a second that WhatsApp or FB messages are truly E2EE”
Comment from 4 Mar 2026 in “TikTok won't protect DMs with E2EE, saying it would put users at risk” “can't you just have your keys on fb servers encrypted with another set of keys derived from your password, which is much stronger than a 4-6 digit key?”
Comment from 15 Apr 2026 in “Peter Steinberger – WhatsApp CLI: sync, search, send” Desktop app and web access removed
“I'm honestly incredibly surprised they would get rid of the desktop app just as desktop messaging apps have become their most important.”
Comment from 17 Feb 2026 in “Meta to retire messenger desktop app and messenger.com in April 2026” “You can't use Facebook Messenger on the web at all, unless you go to Facebook and switch to the desktop version.”
Comment from 26 Nov 2025 in “Don't Download Apps” Pushy engagement prompts and dark patterns
“facebook.com/messages has the notifications, there's no way to turn them off.”
Comment from 17 Feb 2026 in “Meta to retire messenger desktop app and messenger.com in April 2026” “You have whole Facebook bar on top with the notification bell, with unread notifications dark pattern.”
Comment from 17 Feb 2026 in “Meta to retire messenger desktop app and messenger.com in April 2026” Concerns about link blocking and audio recording
“Messenger would block certain links, including links to news outlets to curry favour with organisations and governments.”
Comment from 20 May 2026 in “Meta blocks human rights accounts from reaching audiences in Arabia and the UAE” “They were recording audio on Facebook app and messenger for the longest time without a people using the microphone.”
Comment from 17 Feb 2026 in “Meta is wrong to try to sneak into facial recognition with Ray-Ban glasses”
Other messaging apps people recommend
The four most recommended other messaging apps, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
See all 48 messaging apps, rankedWhat people said
40 of the 140 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“stick with Facebook Messenger”
“Or search in facebook and instagram chat logs.”
“You could call your friends on messenger or WhatsApp”
“thank the heavens for this app which means I rarely need to open Facebook itself”
“they blocked messenger on their webpage, so jokes on them I guess”
“I like FB Messenger because all the state is stored on there instead of being annoying about E2EE”
“I use on Messenger and Whatsapp much more often for voice calls, and you know exactly who is calling.”
“Facebook and Messenger being the only two.”
“In each case some AI functionality has been placed prominently either somewhere that you accidentally press it or in place of something that previously worked.”
“messenger connecting people”
“At least Messenger is a useful product.”
“Messenger would block certain links, including links to news outlets to curry favour with organisations and governments.”
“can't you just have your keys on fb servers encrypted with another set of keys derived from your password, which is much stronger than a 4-6 digit key?”
“all support multi-device and it's pretty convenient”
“Messenger is the only thing of theirs that has any value as far as I can see, and there's many alternatives now.”
“Messenger does 3 things right”
“nobody should believe for a second that WhatsApp or FB messages are truly E2EE”
“The only reason why I didn't delete facebook is messenger, where I chat with old folks.”
“Losing Messenger and Marketplace hurt”
“It all started with Facebook closing pretty much everything and making FB Messenger a custom protocol instead of XMPP.”
“You have whole Facebook bar on top with the notification bell, with unread notifications dark pattern.”
“This move feels like FB is trying to force me to choose between their engagement bait and seeing messages from my friends.”
“facebook.com/messages has the notifications, there's no way to turn them off.”
“Working easily between FB ads and comms”
“helped me to break from FB addiction”
“I keep Messenger app to chat with my college peeps.”
“I'm honestly incredibly surprised they would get rid of the desktop app just as desktop messaging apps have become their most important.”
“the web experience on a phone is... functional”
“messenger.com was nice if you've blocked the facebook.com domain to try to use less social media”
“They were recording audio on Facebook app and messenger for the longest time without a people using the microphone.”
“They don't force users to migrate to Instagram/facebook or whatsapp/messenger.”
“I'm not sure messaging can work well in a mobile browser because notifications would not be timely”
“it's actually a (pretty) good privacy option”
“They could be way faster.”
“Both Telegram and FB messenger are snappy”
“If this is the sort of thing you like (or in your case, used to like), you will like The Messenger too, probably more.”
“by enabling it in Messenger (old network effects)”
“You can't use Facebook Messenger on the web at all, unless you go to Facebook and switch to the desktop version.”
“do some of your contacts use Messenger with location information?”
“the last successful "product" that they built (as opposed to buying) was splitting off Messenger into a separate app”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.