Ranked 23 of 48 messaging apps by recommenders
Widely used messaging and payments app that people say replaces cards and handles daily tasks well, with quick human support. Critics say it is closed and raises privacy and censorship concerns.
Widely used messaging and payments app that people say replaces cards and handles daily tasks well, with quick human support. Critics say it is closed and raises privacy and censorship concerns.
34 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 14
- criticize it
- 20
- approval share
- 41%
Recommended in 9 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 14 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 0.7 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 9 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
Replaces cards and handles payments
“The absence of plastic cards is absolutely not a problem, just look at WeChat, Alipay, etc.”
Comment from 10 Feb 2026 in “Europe's $24T Breakup with Visa and Mastercard Has Begun” “With wechat in china, pix in south america and wero in europe”
Comment from 15 Jul 2026 in “Stripe, Advent offer to buy PayPal for more than $53B” Quick human customer support
“I got escalated to talking a real person and sorted everything out in a few days.”
Comment from 3 Sep 2026 in “Google Antigravity TOS: 3rd party usage can get Google account suspended” “got to talk to a human being and sort it out within a few business days”
Comment from 1 Apr 2026 in “My son pleasured himself on Gemini Live. Entire family's Google accounts banned” “it took less than a day to talk to a person to get it sorted”
Comment from 3 Nov 2025 in “Google suspended my company's Google cloud account for the third time” Most-used messenger in many countries
“In most countries, the most used messenger app is Whatsapp or Wechat or LINE or KakaoTalk”
Comment from 13 Feb 2026 in “Apple, fix my keyboard before the timer ends or I'm leaving iPhone” “WeChat instead of WhatsApp”
Comment from 17 Jan 2026 in “Escaping the trap of US tech dependence” Miniapps useful for tourists
“miniapp platforms like WeChat and LINE in countries with way lower purchasing parity”
Comment from 14 Nov 2025 in “Seed. LINE's Custom Typeface” “it's actually great for tourists”
Comment from 20 Feb 2026 in “We're no longer attracting top talent: the brain drain killing American science”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Privacy risks and government access
“the Chinese government can conveniently read your WeChat messages”
Comment from 16 Feb 2026 in “The Israeli spyware firm that accidentally just exposed itself” “for those who care more about privacy, it's quite problematic.”
Comment from 3 Apr 2026 in “OpenAI raises $122B” “for those who care more about privacy, it's quite problematic”
Comment from 1 Apr 2026 in “OpenAI raises $122B” - Comment from 19 Nov 2025 in “I just want working RCS messaging”
Closed ecosystem, apps don't interoperate
“Shit storage efficiency, stagnated UX experience, very closed ecosystem and external link blocking”
Comment from 12 Oct 2026 in “Will Linux phones become a viable alternative to the Android/iOS duopoly?” “now we need to have 5, 6, 7 different closed systems that can't speak with each other”
Comment from 19 Jun 2026 in “Microsoft new Outlook takes 10 seconds to do what Outlook Classic does instantly” “They are fully bound to the two providers (Alipay and WeChat)”
Comment from 20 May 2026 in “Goodbye Visa and Mastercard: 130M Europeans switching to sovereign payment” Censors messages and blocks links
“Shit storage efficiency, stagnated UX experience, very closed ecosystem and external link blocking”
Comment from 12 Oct 2026 in “Will Linux phones become a viable alternative to the Android/iOS duopoly?” “your message can't be sent because it'll be deemed to be trying to cause social unrest”
Comment from 27 Jan 2026 in “TikTok users can't upload anti-ICE videos. The company blames tech issues” “On WeChat and Douyin (chinese tiktok), good luck mentioning things like”
Comment from 27 Jan 2026 in “TikTok users can't upload anti-ICE videos. The company blames tech issues” Clunky, stagnant user experience
“Shit storage efficiency, stagnated UX experience, very closed ecosystem and external link blocking”
Comment from 12 Oct 2026 in “Will Linux phones become a viable alternative to the Android/iOS duopoly?” “even though their UX is also pretty clunky, it's still somehow efficient”
Comment from 13 Nov 2025 in “Seed. LINE's Custom Typeface”
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
33 of the 36 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“WeChat is shit app pushed down the Chinese throats”
“always one of the fattest apps on my phone”
“that's how you know it's good. bad apps have rather smaller daily user-bashing numbers”
“Shit storage efficiency, stagnated UX experience, very closed ecosystem and external link blocking”
“You must use Wechat; no exceptions.”
“I got escalated to talking a real person and sorted everything out in a few days.”
“WhatsApp and WeChat force all chats into single rectangle”
“With wechat in china, pix in south america and wero in europe”
“now we need to have 5, 6, 7 different closed systems that can't speak with each other”
“it's kinda cumbersome to use so I stopped”
“They are fully bound to the two providers (Alipay and WeChat)”
“That's certainly a way to describe WeChat.”
“Wechat (Weixin; 微信) from Tencent has been doing this for years”
“wechat has the better UX to avoid getting spammed”
“for those who care more about privacy, it's quite problematic.”
“got to talk to a human being and sort it out within a few business days”
“for those who care more about privacy, it's quite problematic”
“it's actually great for tourists”
“I can't say I love having various apps like wechat on my phone”
“the Chinese government can conveniently read your WeChat messages”
“That's got to be the most dystopian one of them all!”
“In most countries, the most used messenger app is Whatsapp or Wechat or LINE or KakaoTalk”
“The absence of plastic cards is absolutely not a problem, just look at WeChat, Alipay, etc.”
“On WeChat and Douyin (chinese tiktok), good luck mentioning things like”
“your message can't be sent because it'll be deemed to be trying to cause social unrest”
“WeChat instead of WhatsApp”
“They could livestream your marriage proposal in WeChat to a billion people”
“I dump photos and videos I want to preserve into a WeChat/Whatsapp chat”
“the corporate interests of WhatsApp/Line/WeChat/Telegram/etc.”
“Neither WeChat or the commercial variant have Linux support”
“miniapp platforms like WeChat and LINE in countries with way lower purchasing parity”
“even though their UX is also pretty clunky, it's still somehow efficient”
“it took less than a day to talk to a person to get it sorted”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.