Encrypted messaging apps compared

End-to-end encryption (E2EE) means only the people in a conversation hold the keys to read it. The company running the service can't read the messages, even if its servers are hacked or it receives a court order. Most popular messengers now use it by default. That doesn't make them equal. They differ in what they know about you (your phone number, contacts, who you talk to and when, known as metadata), in how backups are protected, and in who owns them. Facts below come from each company's own pages, checked November 13, 2026. Tunnelcheck hasn't audited any of these apps.

Default encryption at a glance

Signal

Signal describes itself as "an independent nonprofit" (Signal). It encrypts every message and call end to end by default. Its main privacy argument is how little it keeps. When served with legal demands, Signal publishes the requests and its responses. In a 2016 grand jury case it said the only information it could produce was the date and time an account registered and the last date it connected to the service. Its more recent responses, including two in 2026, repeat that it "cannot turn over information that we never had access to in the first place" (Signal: Government requests).

You still need a phone number to register. Since February 2024, Signal hides your number from people you chat with by default, and you can be reached through a username instead (Signal blog).

WhatsApp

WhatsApp uses the Signal protocol for end-to-end encryption, a rollout it says was completed in 2016. Personal messages and calls are covered, and you can also encrypt your chat backups with a password or key you create. Undelivered messages wait on its servers, encrypted, for up to 30 days (WhatsApp Privacy Policy).

The content is protected; the metadata isn't. WhatsApp's privacy policy describes collecting device and connection information such as hardware model, operating system, IP address, mobile network and device identifiers, and WhatsApp is part of Meta. A 2025 research paper showed it was possible to check which of billions of phone numbers had WhatsApp accounts, which says something about how exposed the phone-number directory is (arXiv).

iMessage and texting between iPhone and Android

iMessage encrypts messages end to end between Apple devices. Backups are the weak point. Unless you use Apple's Advanced Data Protection, iCloud Backup includes a copy of the key for Messages in iCloud, which Apple can access. Apple withdrew Advanced Data Protection for new users in the UK on February 21, 2025, after a UK government order (MacRumors, Privacy Guides).

Facebook Messenger

Meta began switching personal chats and calls on Messenger and Facebook to end-to-end encryption by default on December 6, 2023, after offering it as an opt-in since 2016. The rollout took months (Meta). In January 2025 Meta said default encryption had reached the vast majority of Messenger users (Meta). Group chats and Instagram DMs were still being tested when the 2023 rollout began (Engineering at Meta).

Telegram: not end-to-end encrypted by default

Telegram is often described as an encrypted messenger, but its own FAQ draws a clear line. Normal "cloud chats", including all group chats, use "server-client encryption": messages are encrypted on the way to Telegram's servers, where Telegram can decrypt them. Only "Secret Chats" use end-to-end encryption, and you have to start them by hand for each one-to-one conversation. Telegram's development team is based in Dubai (Telegram FAQ).

If you use Telegram for something sensitive, use a Secret Chat or a different app.

Threema

Threema is a paid Swiss messenger with end-to-end encryption. Its ownership changed recently: at the beginning of 2026, ownership passed from the investor Afinum to Comitis Capital GmbH, a Frankfurt private equity firm. Threema says its headquarters and servers stay in Switzerland (Threema: Who owns Threema?, Privacy Guides).

Session

Session is stewarded by the Session Technology Foundation, a Swiss foundation. You don't need a phone number or email to sign up, and messages travel over an onion-routing network similar to Tor, which hides who's talking to whom. Session is open about two trade-offs. It doesn't currently have perfect forward secrecy, a feature that limits damage if a key is stolen; it says this will return in a future protocol version. And calls are peer-to-peer, so your IP address is shared with the person you call and with a server run by the foundation (Session FAQ).

Wire

Wire says its end-to-end encryption is always on and can't be disabled, and that chats use Messaging Layer Security (MLS), an internet standard it helped create (Wire Security, Wire: MLS). Wire mostly sells to businesses and governments today. Reports describe a commercial base in Switzerland with development teams in Berlin (Sifted).

Which messaging app is most private?

On published evidence, Signal is the strongest mainstream choice: encryption on everything by default, and court records showing it holds almost nothing about users. Session goes further on anonymity by dropping phone numbers, at the cost of forward secrecy for now. WhatsApp and Messenger protect message content well but sit inside Meta, which collects metadata. iMessage is strong between Apple devices if you protect your backups. Telegram's default chats aren't end-to-end encrypted.

Encryption protects the message in transit and on the company's servers. It doesn't protect a phone someone else can get into, or one infected with spyware. A VPN doesn't add to message encryption, but it can hide which services you connect to from your network; see public Wi-Fi safety.