Signal vs. Telegram: What’s the Difference, Which One Is Better?

Whether you’re an activist concerned about government surveillance, a business professional communicating sensitive information, or an average user wanting greater data privacy, encrypted messaging apps like Signal and Telegram promise more control over your communications security.

This comprehensive yet friendly guide will analyze all the key differences between these two popular secure chat apps to help you decide which better fits your needs and priorities. I’ll be comparing them across 10 categories including encryption methods, features, security, adoption stats and expert recommendations.

Let’s get started!

An Introduction to Signal and Telegram

Before we dive into the nitty gritty details, let’s briefly recap what each app is all about.

Signal first launched in 2014 under Open Whisper Systems, a non-profit foundation focused on secure communication technologies. You may already be using Signal’s encryption protocol if you have WhatsApp, since they incorporate Signal‘s open source protocol into their apps now owned by Meta.

The key promise Signal makes is complete end-to-end encryption applied by default to all messages, media, voice calls and video chats. This means only you and the intended recipient can access the communication contents – not even Signal’s server.

This commitment to uncompromising security above all else has won over even whistleblowers and cybersecurity experts as we’ll explore shortly.

Telegram, created by Russian tech entrepreneur Pavel Durov in 2013, positions itself more as a secure replacement to mass market chat apps like WhatsApp. While security is important, Telegram focuses a bit more on flexibility and features to rival mainstream social messaging giants.

Telegram promotes ‘security by default’ through standard encryption for all chats, along with an option for ‘Secret Chats‘ using end-to-end encryption. This lets users choose between convenience and absolute security chat-by-chat.

Now that we understand the high level principles behind each app, let’s analyze their approach to encryption and security in more detail.

Encryption and Security Protocols

This section gets a bit more technical – but stay with me! Understanding the encryption methods these apps use will give you better insight into how safely your data is stored and transmitted.

Signal’s End-to-End Encryption Protocol

Signal uses an open source end-to-end encryption protocol developed in partnership between Open Whisper Systems and researcher Moxie Marlinspike. You can actually read Signal‘s complete encryption methodology on GitHub here if you’re curious about the cryptography behind it.

Here‘s a quick explaination of how Signal‘s encryption works in normal language:

First, when you install Signal, it generates an encryption key pair on your device saved in your local storage:

A public key used to encrypt messages before sending them
A private key used to decrypt messages once received

When sending a message to another Signal user, their public key encrypts your message in transit. Only the recipient‘s private key can then decrypt the message on their device. Not even Signal‘s server stores the keys to decrypt message contents.

Signal‘s end-to-end encryption ensures only you and the recipient can view encrypted messages

This approach is widely regarded by cybersecurity experts as offering virtually impenetrable protections against messages being intercepted and read by attackers or unauthorized third parties – including Signal themselves or governments.

By encrypting metadata too, Signal ensures maximum privacy. The only data stored is your phone number and last connection date.

The one downside to end-to-end encryption is losing your device means losing your message history. However, you can create encrypted local backups only you control.

Overall though, Signal‘s protocol offers best-in-class security according to encryption experts including Edward Snowden.

Telegram‘s Encryption Options

Rather than mandating end-to-end encryption like Signal does, Telegram provides users more flexibility – offering both:

A) Standard client-server encrypted chats

B) Optional ‘Secret Chats‘ for end-to-end encrypted conversations

Telegram encrypts all chat data in transit between their cloud servers and client apps on your devices using 256-bit symmetric AES encryption:

Telegram uses client-server encryption with optional Secret Chats for end-to-end encryption

However, Telegram does store and process unencrypted chat data on their servers. While still decently secure, researchers caution this dependency on Telegram‘s infrastructure risks potential server-side attacks decrypting chat history without a user‘s knowledge.

For users wanting message contents inaccessible even to Telegram, that‘s where Secret Chats come in. These enable much stronger end-to-end encryption protection, ensuring only you and the specific recipient can read chat contents. However, unlike Signal this E2EE option in Telegram remains manual per chat.

Furthermore, Telegram‘s central cloud infrastructure means some metadata visibility remains even in Secret Chats. While message contents are securely encrypted in Secret Chats, Telegram can still view data like chat members, timestamps and identifiers.

In summary – Telegram offers flexibility to balance convenience and security. But experts overwhelmingly favor Signal‘s uncompromising default E2EE approach for true private communication assurance.