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Tired of Kik? Here Are 8 Alternatives You Might Try

Tired of Kik? Here Are 8 Alternatives You Might Try

The Kik messaging app is a fan favorite because of its user-friendly interface and privacy. Offering users the ability to meet new people without sharing their personal phone number with strangers.

Although Kik has been around for some time, fans may be looking to convert to another messaging application. With more and more messaging applications available every day; it may be difficult to figure out which one is best for you.

Typically, most users will find themselves gravitating towards the messaging service which holds the majority of their friends and fellow chatters, but there are advantages to using other apps.

Kik’s Features

One big problem that the explosion of apps has created is that the existing popular apps such as Kik, for example, have fallen prey to the temptation to add more and more features because they don’t want to be outcompeted by some new chat app. Kik’s popularity exploded because it can be used for anonymous chatting in addition to getting in touch with your friends.

Kik has also tried to become more than just a messaging app in recent years. Video chat, Snapchat-like filters, stickers and more have bogged the app down with useless features that most users won’t need, making the app larger and increasingly unstable. Now the app seems to be predominantly filled with spam and underage users, making it difficult to chat with other users without risking being blown up with spam or talking to a high school student from a distant state. All of this makes Kik an increasingly poor choice, both for communicating with your friends and for meeting new people online.

So, if you’re tired of the constant spam, or you want to get away from the younger audience that’s taken over Kik in recent years, let’s check out seven of the best Kik alternatives for both iOS and Android.

WhatsApp
WhatsApp

Compatible With

IOS, Android

WhatsApp is not quite as popular stateside as competitors like iMessage or Hangouts, but more than half the world uses WhatsApp as their primary communication app, dominating 109 countries as of 2016.

The Facebook-owned messaging service is the second-most-popular messaging app worldwide. WhatsApp is, outside of a couple of small features, a pure messaging app that doesn’t bog your phone down with unnecessary resource drains and poorly-optimized features.

First, let’s talk about the design differences between WhatsApp versions. WhatsApp follows design guidelines for both iOS and Android pretty closely, depending on which platform you’re using.

On iOS, the app features a clean blue-and-white design, obviously inspired by iMessage.

On Android, the app looks quite a bit different, with a tab-based interface and solid forest green color scheme that more closely relates to the messaging apps we’ve seen on Android, like Google’s own SMS messaging app or Hangouts.

Both feature similar functionalities within their designs though, with the Android app dividing the app into calls, chats, and your contacts list, while the iOS keeps your chats front and center. Each app has a new chat icon easily accessible anywhere from the main display.

Feature-wise, both versions are near-identical to each other, with the iOS and Android versions both including standard messaging features expected by consumers in 2018. Within each chat interface, you’ll find options to send photos both from your gallery and your camera automatically, video or audio clips to your friends over WiFi or data, location information, and even contact information to your friends and family members using the app.

Despite the differences with the design of the conversation display in both versions, the chat interface seems to match each other almost exactly. Below the conversation thread—either with one or multiple users inside a group message—you’ll find the same text field, along with a send button and an option to include photos in your message.

So beyond basic chats, what does WhatsApp provide? Let’s break it down: first, there’s absolutely no fees, ads, or in-app purchases included in the app, making it a great choice for any user looking for an entirely free app. The app is also incredibly lightweight, especially in comparison to apps like Facebook Messenger. Whereas that app focuses primarily on trying to be the app for everything you could ever want—games, mobile payments, and more—WhatsApp focuses on getting the fundamentals of messaging right without adding any additional bloat. The app itself is nearly half the size of the Facebook Messenger app on iOS and Android, and without the features included in Messenger, it is able to load and run faster than Messenger on both low and high-end phones.

WhatsApp’s only notable additional feature to the standard messaging and calling stuff in the basic app is its social feature, allowing you to post statuses and stories similar to AIM and Snapchat, respectively.

Overall, WhatsApp is a great replacement for Kik. It’s easy enough to add contacts through your device, though we wish it was as easy as trading Kik usernames. The app runs smoothly and doesn’t use a massive amount of battery, making for a great experience in the arena of terribly optimized chat apps.

Using the app is smooth and easy, calls sound great on WiFi or wireless data, and the lack of ads and bloatware makes using the app a breeze. WhatsApp may not replace Kik for anonymous chatting anytime soon, but it sure can try—it’s a great app, one absolutely worthy of keeping on your phone.

App Details Android

  • Category Communication
  • Installs 5,000,000,000+
  • Rating out of 5 4.3
  • Last Updated Date 9 May 2022
  • App Developer WhatsApp LLC
  • Download Size Varies with device
  • Compatibility Android 4.1 and up
  • Price free

App Details iOS

  • Category Social Networking
  • Category Ranking 3
  • Rating 9.8M
  • Rating out of 5 4.7
  • Last Updated Date 18 March 2022
  • App Developer WhatsApp Inc.
  • Download Size 210.7 MB
  • Compatibility Requires iOS 10.0 or later.
  • Price Free
Facebook Messenger
Facebook Messenger

Compatible With

IOS, Android

Our second recommendation is another app owned by Facebook. But while WhatsApp largely serves foreign and developing countries, Messenger is the app that’s caught on in Facebook’s own home country, largely based on the ubiquity of Facebook in our modern culture. With a built-in user base of over 2 billion users, Facebook Messenger is the easiest way to chat with the people you already know, even if you’ll likely find the discovery tools to be a bit lacking overall.

Let’s start with the basics. If you haven’t used Facebook Messenger before, you likely aren’t on Facebook. Unsurprisingly, the app does require a Facebook profile, but Messenger itself doesn’t require Facebook to be installed on your phone. Once you’ve loaded into the main app, you’ll find the main page to be a bit busy.

The top features a search bar, along with a tab-based interface for your inbox, active users, group messages, and calls. In the inbox tab, you’ll find your messages in reverse-chronological order, along with an “Active Now” interface built-in.

If you scroll up, you’ll find Messenger’s hidden “Stories” feature, a direct copy of Snapchat’s own stories (though you’re much less likely to find anyone using it). At the very bottom of the app are a few more tabs: home, contacts, camera, games, and a Facebook group feature for messaging brands and companies.

The basic chat interface is clean, though, with a nice, bright blue-on-white interface. From within each chat thread, there are various options to choose from for sending messages. At the top of the messaging interface, you can activate a voice or video call to any user, making it easy to reach out to anyone regardless of their operating system of choice.

At the bottom of each chat, you have near-endless possibilities for sending messages to users and others. You can send your location, photos, videos, audio recordings, emojis, stickers, even money, all within a single app.

Each chat thread can be customized by hitting the information button in the top-right corner, From there, you can change how notifications work, modify the chat’s color theme, pick your automatic emoji for the thread (by default, it’s a like), change nicknames for people inside the app, enable a “secret conversation” mode that automatically deletes messages after a certain amount of time, and more.

The customization involved in Messenger is something we haven’t seen from most other messaging apps, making it a unique offering among the litany of other selections.

As we mentioned, Facebook Messenger manages to fit in more features than most users will ever need or want. There’s the Snapchat-styled AR filters and stickers, allowing you to add effects and designs to your Snap-like photo messages for sending to users.

There’s the aforementioned Stories rip-off, though no one seems to be using it too much. There’s a built-in games interface within Messenger, with multiplayer games where you can compete against your friends for points and high scores. A lot of this might seem like bloat—and it is, to a point—but it also makes for one of the most well-rounded chat apps on the market today. In fact, Facebook Messenger really only falls in one major category: discovery. You don’t necessarily need to be friends on Facebook with someone to message them, but you’re going to run into the unique problem of your message being pushed into a “Message Request” category that hides your message automatically. This lack of ability to meet and communicate with new people makes it difficult to compete with Kik.

Overall, Messenger is one of the best apps you can pick on the market. For one, the audience is there—you won’t have to convince your friends to switch over to a new messaging app if they’re already on this one.

The app is loaded with features, making it a one-stop-shop to replace pretty much any communication app on your phone. The built-in functionality works well, even if some of it is directly taken from apps like Snapchat or Venmo. The app can be a bit of a battery and resource hog, and it’s certainly not a slim app, but it is a great alternative to Kik

App Details Android

  • Category Communication
  • Installs 5,000,000,000+
  • Rating out of 5 4.1
  • Last Updated Date 18 April 2022
  • App Developer Meta Platforms, Inc.
  • Download Size Varies with device
  • Compatibility Android Varies with device
  • Price $0.05 - $399.99 per item

App Details iOS

  • Category Social Networking
  • Category Ranking 2
  • Rating 1.3M
  • Rating out of 5 4.1
  • Last Updated Date 21 March 2022
  • App Developer Meta Platforms, Inc.
  • Download Size 86.4 MB
  • Compatibility Requires iOS 11.0 or later.
  • Price Free
WeChat
WeChat

Compatible With

IOS, Android

Like WhatsApp, WeChat has had its fair share of difficulty penetrating the world outside of its home country of China. You might not have heard of WeChat, but the world has: the messaging app has almost a billion active users, with the app being used for professional and personal communications within China itself.

The app has replaced mainstays like email and SMS messages for hundreds of millions of people, and even though the app’s had challenges making moves within other countries, its success in China is nothing to blink at. Like WhatsApp, you can chat, share images, send video and audio to other users, and more.

In addition to standard text and photo messages, the app supports all sorts of calling, including voice, video, and group calling. The app manages to be resilient enough for business and casual usage, but it’s best Kik-replacement feature is the ability to meet new people for chatting.

Heading into the Discover tab inside the app invites you to shake your phone. The app then searches for other users shaking their phones at the same time, and that’s it—new friend discovered. WeChat’s social features make Kik’s username-based search functions seem like a thing of the past, with meeting and making new friends incredibly easy for anyone to use.

Whether you’re looking for a standard messaging service or you want to meet new people, WeChat’s a great app—if you can find other stateside users, that is.

App Details Android

  • Category Communication
  • Installs 100,000,000+
  • Rating out of 5 3.7
  • Last Updated Date 10 April 2022
  • App Developer WeChat International Pte. Ltd.
  • Download Size 430M
  • Compatibility Android 5.0 and up
  • Price $0.99 - $14.99 per item

App Details iOS

  • Category Social Networking
  • Category Ranking 53
  • Rating 64.5K
  • Rating out of 5 4.2
  • Last Updated Date 26 January 2022
  • App Developer Tencent Technology (Shenzhen) Company Limited
  • Download Size 572.9 MB
  • Compatibility Requires iOS 12.0 or later.
  • Price Free
Line
Line

Compatible With

IOS, Android

Line is a direct competitor to WeChat in China and other Asian countries, but the app’s presented a real challenge to WeChat and similar apps with its popularity expanding globally, downloaded over 500 million times on Android alone.

With millions of active users, Line might not be as well-known as Kik or WhatsApp, but it’s certainly worth showing some attention. Like WeChat, Line offers free messaging, video calls, voice calls, and group chats, with support for up to 200 users chatting in a group at once.

The app supports stickers and emoji and even has a desktop client for chatting away from your phone. You can add your contacts, or meet new people through the app’s social network.

Line’s developers added a bunch of features inspired by other social media apps, including the ability to follow people’s accounts (like Twitter or Facebook) and the ability to create a poll for determining anything from what to do, where to go, or what to eat.

Line is not quite as popular as its direct competitor in WeChat, but by no means is it a bad app. We might prefer WeChat for its ‘shake-to-discover’ feature, but Line’s worth looking into on both iOS and Android.

App Details Android

  • Category Communication
  • Installs 500,000,000+
  • Rating out of 5 4.2
  • Last Updated Date 16 May 2022
  • App Developer LINE Corporation
  • Download Size Varies with device
  • Compatibility Android Varies with device
  • Price $0.99 - $139.99 per item

App Details iOS

  • Category Social Networking
  • Category Ranking 72
  • Rating 12.5K
  • Rating out of 5 3.5
  • Last Updated Date 14 March 2022
  • App Developer LINE Corporation
  • Download Size 269.9 MB
  • Compatibility Requires iOS 13.0 or later.
  • Price Free
Viber
Viber

Compatible With

IOS, Android

Viber’s aesthetic more closely aligns with apps like Skype than it does with Kik, but key features make it another alternative too Kik. Viber’s packed with both features and millions of regular users, making it easy to use the app to keep in communication with your friends. Linking your cell number to the app connects you to any and all contacts also signed up with Viber, an app that’s been downloaded over 500 million times on Android alone.

Once you’re signed in, you can do all the standard communication features you’d expect from a messaging application. You can chat, share media like photos, videos and audio clips, send files back and forth between users, and more.

Since Viber is a similar app to Skype, you can place video and voice calls between users without paying a cent, and you can even place international calls to Viber users around the world, with calls to traditional numbers costing only a few cents per minute depending on location. Since Viber offers both emoji and stickers within the app. Overall, it’s a strong contender for messaging apps, even if it doesn’t quite meet the highs of WhatsApp, Messenger, and WeChat.

App Details Android

  • Category Communication
  • Installs 1,000,000,000+
  • Rating out of 5 4.5
  • Last Updated Date 22 May 2022
  • App Developer Viber Media S.Ă  r.l.
  • Download Size Varies with device
  • Compatibility Android Varies with device
  • Price $0.99 - $109.99 per item

App Details iOS

  • Category Social Networking
  • Category Ranking 31
  • Rating 329.7K
  • Rating out of 5 4.6
  • Last Updated Date 17 March 2022
  • App Developer Viber Media SARL.
  • Download Size 250.5 MB
  • Compatibility Requires iOS 12.0 or later.
  • Price Free
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Snapchat
Snapchat

Compatible With

IOS, Android

Sure, Snapchat isn’t quite as traditional a messaging app as WhatsApp, Viber, or WeChat, but it’s also one of our favorite social apps for one major reason: it’s incredibly, incredibly fun to use.

Though Snapchat is largely based around sending images and videos, the app can also be used for sending chats to other users, which automatically delete themselves after the message has been viewed. Privacy is a major factor in Snapchat’s usage, and the deletion of photos, videos, and text makes it a really interesting choice for users around the world.

Group chats exist as well, with those messages not deleting for 24 hours, so it’s easy to make plans and speak amongst yourselves without the messages disappearing immediately.

Snapchat’s features have been copied by dozens of social and messaging apps, including Facebook’s own WhatsApp and Messenger apps directly implementing Stories as a feature of their own, but no app has quite built a feature set as great as Snapchat’s own.

One place this app does fall in comparison to competitors: it’s a bit more difficult to meet new people without trading usernames or Snapcodes. Luckily, communities exist online—including in environments like Reddit—for such an event. If you aren’t using Snapchat yet, it’s an incredibly fun and rewarding app worth keeping on your phone—even if the app is a bit of a battery and data hog.

App Details Android

  • Category Communication
  • Installs 1,000,000,000+
  • Rating out of 5 4.2
  • Last Updated Date 16 May 2022
  • App Developer Snap Inc
  • Download Size 85M
  • Compatibility Android 4.4 and up
  • Price $0.99 - $399.99 per item

App Details iOS

  • Category Photo & Video
  • Category Ranking 3
  • Rating 1M
  • Rating out of 5 3.6
  • Last Updated Date 21 March 2022
  • App Developer Snap, Inc.
  • Download Size 249.5 MB
  • Compatibility Requires iOS 11.0 or later.
  • Price Free
Signal
Signal

Compatible With

IOS, Android

If you’re looking for an app that’s more secure than Kik, Signal is trusted around the world for keeping its user’s messages safe with end-to-end encryptions. Whereas apps like WeChat and WhatsApp are vulnerable to security flaws, Signal is recommended by web security experts like the EFF for keeping your messages secure and safe against leaks and data hacks. Infamous whistleblower Edward Snowden himself has even recommended and endorsed the app on multiple occasions, so you can be sure the app is verified for safety and security.

The app is incredibly fast, and both the iOS and Android versions match their respective themes, so you never feel too out of place on your phone with an unfamiliar interface.

If there’s one place Signal fails to replace Kik; it’s unsurprisingly the social features of the app. Signal isn’t quite built to meet and make new connections through the app—you use your existing phone numbers to make connections.

Finding your existing friends through Signal is easy enough, but finding new friends is much harder. Still, for those users looking to make their conversations entirely private, Signal is by far the best app on either platform. It’s fast, free, and completely secured.

App Details Android

  • Category Communication
  • Installs 100,000,000+
  • Rating out of 5 4.6
  • Last Updated Date 17 May 2022
  • App Developer Signal Foundation
  • Download Size Varies with device
  • Compatibility Android 4.4 and up
  • Price free

App Details iOS

  • Category Social Networking
  • Category Ranking 22
  • Rating 458.3K
  • Rating out of 5 4.7
  • Last Updated Date 26 March 2022
  • App Developer Signal Messenger, LLC
  • Download Size 136.9 MB
  • Compatibility Requires iOS 12.2 or later.
  • Price Free
MeWe Network
MeWe Network

Compatible With

IOS, Android

Boasting itself as another social media application that is competing with Facebook, MeWe is another Kik alternative you should consider. Absolutely free with no ads or propaganda, this messaging application offers group messages, chats, the option to create GIFs and more!

A unique feature of MeWe is that the developers stress that there is no newsfeed manipulation. Essentially, users will not be censored (which may be a good or a bad thing).

MeWe is a lightweight application that does drain battery like some of the other options we’ve mentioned. MeWe does let users make voice calls, video calls, send regular chats, and send ‘secret chats.’

With a free 30-day subscription ($0.99/mo. after the first month), users who’d like additional security will have access to encrypted messages on both ends.

Unlike Kik, MeWe is not a superbly popular application so it may take some talking friends and contacts into making the switch. Simple to use and secure, MeWe may be the Kik alternative you’re looking for.

App Details Android

  • Category Social
  • Installs 5,000,000+
  • Rating out of 5 4.3
  • Last Updated Date 10 May 2022
  • App Developer MeWe
  • Download Size 141M
  • Compatibility Android 7.0 and up
  • Price $0.99 - $399.99 per item

App Details iOS

  • Category Social Networking
  • Rating 9.5K
  • Rating out of 5 4.4
  • Last Updated Date 28 March 2022
  • App Developer Sgrouples, Inc.
  • Download Size 97.5 MB
  • Compatibility Requires iOS 14.0 or later.
  • Price Free
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Apr 20, 2020

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Tired of Kik? Here Are 8 Alternatives You Might Try

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