# WhatsApp 300 Hacker News commenters recommended WhatsApp and 503 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 12 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 2 years (3 owners). **Verdict:** Widely used, end-to-end encrypted messenger that beats SMS for groups, media and free international calls, though many distrust Meta's ownership, data collection and closed source. ## Why people recommend it - End-to-end encryption via Signal protocol (7 comments): "I don't use them, besides what's app because it's difficult to avoid. It's also end to end encrypted so it doesn't really matter regarding mass surveillance." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50168903)) "the app in question has been thoroughly reverse engineered and you can freely check for yourself that it's using the same protocol as Signal for encryption" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46837759)) "WhatsApp uses the Signal protocol, and there is zero evidence of them reading message contents except with the consent of one of the users involved" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47254227)) - Everyone you need is on it (3 comments): "I don't use them, besides what's app because it's difficult to avoid. It's also end to end encrypted so it doesn't really matter regarding mass surveillance." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50168903)) "WhatsApp is end-to-end encrypted, so I'm not trusting Meta with much, and it's the only way I can reach quite a lot of people." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49616064)) "yeah whatsapp and spotify are super ubiquitous these days but they're literally not required to get in touch with me" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46469920)) - Cheap international calls and messaging (3 comments): "WhatsApp has major advantages over SMS/MMS, including high-quality media, group chats that actually work, free international messaging" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45985949)) "it can be a lot cheaper (e.g. for international calls) and has features (conference calls) not offered by consumer phones" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48717658)) "Those of us with family in other countries save a lot of money by using Whatsapp and similar instead of phone calls." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48132451)) - Better than SMS for groups, media (3 comments): "WhatsApp has major advantages over SMS/MMS, including high-quality media, group chats that actually work, free international messaging" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45985949)) "it is more reliable than SMS and generally there is a better 1:1 mapping between whatsapp accounts and real humans than phone numbers" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46798545)) "It does just offer an easy, secure way of contacting people using their phone number, through text, voice, images, video." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47972918)) ## What people warn about - Distrust of Meta's privacy record (5 comments): "WhatsApp offering an on-app opt-in model to detect scans seems like a well thought through feature, though Meta's reputation is not good on this topic" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50044376)) "It only takes one engineer in all the teams at Whatsapp that has different directives to make all your privacy work completely useless." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46840224)) "One platform is owned and run by a trillion-dollar corporation with a long history of privacy violations, data breaches, coverups, and security issues" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46024483)) - Telemetry, analytics and contact harvesting (3 comments): "Meta still tracks analytics which isn't good for privacy, but I'm not aware of any news of them or 3rd parties reading messages without consent" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47252284)) "Zuck analyses every message you send and the metadata of your contacts, and sells the analysis results to advertisers and government agencies." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50231053)) "There is also so much that's truly awful about it, such as Meta vacuuming up your contact list, photos, and recording extensive telemetry." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49090947)) - Encryption claims can't be verified (4 comments): "Not that they're making it easier by providing source code for WhatsApp's cryptography or a debug interface to validate what's actually going on in the client" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49623120)) "Recent reporting has confirmed that WhatsApps numerous promises that no one other than intended recipients has access to users communications is false." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49707819)) "Centralized proprietary software on on proprietary platforms can always be opted into a special update that makes all the private keys deterministic" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48072639)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [iMessage](https://hackerapproved.com/p/imessage.md): 100 recommend - [Conversations XMPP client](https://hackerapproved.com/p/conversations.md): 31 recommend - [Tether (iMessage and SMS on Linux)](https://hackerapproved.com/p/tether.md): 22 recommend - [Google Messages](https://hackerapproved.com/p/google-messages.md): 12 recommend - [OpenBubbles](https://hackerapproved.com/p/openbubbles.md): 5 recommend ## Where to get it - [Visit the official site](https://www.whatsapp.com/) ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "WhatsApp", https://hackerapproved.com/p/whatsapp/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).