I’ve been a heavy Telegram user since around 2016. I’d say the main thing I love about it is their focus on user experience. Everything is always super fast, looks nice and feels smooth. They’re often pushing new features which is always cool to see.

Plus their iOS/macOS apps look native and aren’t web-based, so it’s a great replacement for iMessage.

At this point I’ve converted my whole family and friends and they all love it too!

For me:

• Awesome stickers with very good custom sticker support.
• You can use a nickname to chat, you don't need to share your GSM number with anyone which was an incredibly stupid idea in the first place. On that account , better privacy than Signal or ShitsApp.
• You can use simultaneously on multiple web AND mobile devices.
• You don't lose your chat history when you login from another mobile device like in ShitsApp.
• Stores your media server-side. So you always have your full chat with all the media in it. Of course this requires care about what you share with other.
• Forwarding messages between chats has a lot of flexibility.
• Message editing. Which ShitsApp finally copied. 🤣
• Constantly improved. They are always adding more features.
• The channel support is really good..

It works, on every OS, seamlessly, for instant messaging (which is all I use it for).

I use multiple devices throughout the day, and all messages show up instantly on every device, while supporting file transfers, etc.

It just works.

Signal is like using SMS. The UI sucks. And no sync between devices. I appreciate what they're trying to do (which is why sync between devices is challenging), but I can't get anyone to use it anymore since they dropped SMS support.

Telegram banned me literally seconds after I registered, even before I could finish setting up my profile. Not once but twice weth two different numbers. Without any kinds of explanations as to why. I've contacted support multiple times but literally zero replies. People literally do drug businesses there, host pirated stuff and CSAM, that's somehow ok and me just registering is where they draw the line?

Can't say that about Signal. So as far as I'm concerned, yeah Signal is way better.

It's big in the furry fandom, weirdly enough. Not as much these days as it used to be, but still big enough.

Its better than signal in every aspect except privacy (still better than whatsapp in that and arguably a secure messaging app).

A good cross platform user friendly client goes a long way, especially having a good desktop version.