Review: Telegram

Telegram is yet another IM service which is pretty similar to all the others currently available. Telegrams main defining features are the ability for users to make their own sticker packs, private chats and a GPL licensed client.

Pros

• A client for almost every platform
• Custom sticker packs
• Private chats with semi secure encryption
• Nice UI

Cons

• Server is closed source
• Requires a phone number to register (Possibly a pro for making blocking bad users easier)
• No clear way to get involved with the client development.
• Contributes to the problem of IM fragmentation by creating another service incompatible with the rest.

In Conclusion

Telegram is not a bad IM service but its not a great one either, I would rate it above others like WhatsApp and Skype for the fact that it has open source clients but in the end its another app that people have to download to be able to talk with all their contacts and can never truly be a standard due to the closed off nature of the telegram server software.