By Kavita Mistry 
WhatsApp has been in use for staying connected with family and friends for a long time. There are many alternative messenger apps available, like Telegram, Signal, Facebook Messenger, etc. Despite having many great alternatives to WhatsApp, it has over 3 billion active monthly users as of March 2025, according to a report by Statista. Telegram, Signal, and other messaging apps are nowhere near the active userbase of WhatsApp, except for WeChat, which is a default everything app in China.
The features on WhatsApp and active users who are easy to find with a mobile number make it a default choice of messaging app on smartphones. WhatsApp is still introducing new features, and it will stay huge with the user base going forward, too. Arattai Messenger by Zoho Corporation has been making news nowadays. Some people are claiming it as a perfect alternative to WhatsApp. Let’s see what Arattai Messenger is, and how it compares with WhatsApp in terms of features, privacy, and usability.
What Is Arattai Messenger
Arratai Messenger was launched in January 2021 by Zoho Corporation. It allows users to communicate with each other via text messages, voice, and video calls. Like WhatsApp, it is also available on multiple platforms like Android, iOS, Windows, macOS, Linux, and watchOS.
Though it was launched a long time ago, it is now suddenly making headlines with the Indian ministers publicly adopting Zoho’s products as a part of the “Make in India” initiative. As a part of positioning Zoho’s products as perfect alternatives to Microsoft, Google, and other major corporations’ products, Arratai Messenger, along with other Zoho products, gained a lot of traction.
Users on social media are claiming that Arattai is a perfect replacement for WhatsApp to support the “Make in India” initiative. Sridhar Vembu, founder and chairman of Zoho Corporation, actively started promoting Arattai Messenger, seeing the call from the Indian government’s cabinet ministers.
Sridhar Vembu stated that Arattai Messenger works well even on low-end phones, low-bandwidth networks, with outstanding privacy and security. He also announced that the team behind Arattai at Zoho Corporation is working to bring new features that users expect in a month or so.
The sign-ups on Arattai Messenger have increased 100x from 3k per day to 350k per day with the ongoing headlines, according to Sridhar Vembu. When some users raised a criticism that the user data related to Arattai Messenger is stored on servers located in the US, and Zoho’s apps have a US address listed on the Google Play Store, Sridhar Vembu clarified that the data related to each country is stored in their respective countries on Zoho’s own servers located in their 18 datacenters around the world.
The discourse regarding Arattai and Zoho is actively ongoing. As the developers are hoping, does Arattai Messengar have the capabilities to compare and compete with WhatsApp? Let’s find out.
Arattai vs WhatsApp: A Detailed Comparison
We are going to compare the features of Arattai Messenger with WhatsApp’s features, privacy options, encryption of chats, user data collection, and usability. Read on to know more about each aspect of the new messenger app.
| Arattai Messenger | ||
| Launch | 2021 | 2009 |
| User base | Unknown, but actively adding 350k users per day | 3 billion plus users |
| Messaging features | Text and voice messages, audio and video calls, group chats, channels, scheduled meetings, media sharing, etc. | Text and voice messages, audio and video calls, group chats, channels, scheduled meetings, media sharing, etc. |
| Encryption | Calls are end-to-end encrypted | Chats, calls, statuses, media, documents, and location are end-to-end encrypted |
| Unique features | More options to schedule and record meetings, and Integration with Zoho products | Avatars, WhatsApp Payment, WhatsApp Business for businesses |
| Availability | Android, iOS, Windows, macOS, and Android TV | Android, iOS, Windows, macOS, iPadOS, and WhatsApp Web |
Signup Process
Like WhatsApp, we need a mobile number to sign up on the Arattai Messenger, and it can only be done on Smartphones. When we enter our mobile number, it sends a “one-time password” for verification. Then, we have to enter our name and upload a profile picture just like we do on WhatsApp. The signup process is pretty easy on both messenger platforms when we have an active mobile number.
It would have made a lot of difference if they had allowed users to sign up on any platform, like on a desktop using a web browser. The bio page on Arattai Messenger seems the same except for wording and a feature to add a username, like the Telegram app.
If you set a username for your profile, others can easily find your account with the username. This feature is missing on WhatsApp, as it is mandatory to share your mobile number with others to start a chat with them or to let them find your WhatsApp account.
Messaging Features
The messaging features are the same on both Arattai and WhatsApp. You can chat with a person if they are available on Arattai Messenger. You can create a group with the users on Arattai Messenger as well as send broadcast messages to a large number of users, like on WhatsApp.
We can chat via texts, use emojis, stickers, and GIFs on both Arattai and WhatsApp. The option to send customized avatars in chats is not available on Arattai yet. WhatsApp has it. Also, you can send a lot of attachment types like Images, Location, Contacts, Documents, Audio, etc., on WhatsApp chats. You can even create polls, make payments, and create events. Arattai has no such features on its chats. You can send files, scan documents to send, share location, or contacts in Arattai Messenger.
Sridhar Vembu of Zoho tweeted that they are working to bring interoperability features to Arattai Messenger, like Unified Payments Interface (UPI) and emails, instead of restricting chats to users on the same platform like WhatsApp. If it happens, it would be a game-changer for Arattai as WhatsApp misses the feature, and there is no announcement or expectation of such a feature.
Encryption of Chats
Arratai does not offer end-to-end encryption of chats currently. The developers claim that they follow an industry-leading commitment to user privacy. The calls made on Arattai are end-to-end encrypted as per the FAQs on the Arattai official website, but the level of encryption is not revealed.
WhatsApp, on the other hand, encrypts all the chats and calls made through the platform using the Signal protocol, which is termed as the safest end-to-end encryption. The messaging platform encrypts text and voice messages, audio and video calls, photos, videos, documents we send in chats, location data, and status updates. Arattai Messenger does not have such encryption.
The encryption of everything on WhatsApp is enabled by default. Arattai, which claims to be a strong competitor for WhatsApp in India, fails miserably in the encryption features. It means that Arattai can see the chats between users as they are not encrypted to begin with. The chats on WhatsApp are encrypted at the sender’s side and decrypted using random security keys at the receiver’s side. No one in the middle can read, access, or see those texts.
Voice and Video Calls
Both Arattai Messenger and WhatsApp offer features to make audio and video calls with other users on the platform. You can even schedule them on both platforms. Arattai takes a lead here with the extra features it offers while scheduling a call or meeting.
When you schedule a call or “Meeting” on Arattai Messenger, you see options to name the meeting, select a date, and time with options to change timezone, duration of the meeting, frequency of the meetings, select cohost, participants, etc., like we do on Zoom or other meeting apps. You can set a password for the meeting, choose to record the meeting, and set an agenda for the meeting, which is not available on WhatsApp.
WhatsApp has just treated the scheduling of calls as a feature for normal users instead of workplace meetings. The recording feature on the Arattai Messenger might pose a threat to the privacy of participants involved in the meeting if they do not observe the recording, even though they are notified of it.
Both WhatsApp and Arattai Messenger offer options to relay calls through their servers to protect the IP addresses of the users from exposure.
Privacy Features
WhatsApp offers more privacy features than Arattai Messenger. Arattai Messenger offers users to create a username. Seeing that option, one would expect to privacy features to hide the mobile number and use the username to share a profile like we do on Telegram.
WhatsApp has privacy features to make messages disappear after a time, disable link previews, lock chats, silence unknown callers, etc., which are not available on Arattai Messenger.
Additional Features
Arattai Messenger offers most of the WhatsApp features. The Status feature on WhatsApp is available as Stories on Arattai. You can change who sees your status, like on WhatsApp, and restrict users. You can select to get notifications when any of your friends upload a new story, which is unavailable on WhatsApp.
WhatsApp offers a communities feature, which is available as Channels on Arattai Messenger. The “Message yourself” option on WhatsApp is available as “Pocket” on Arattai, where you can save important messages, share media from other apps, and create notes for yourself to access them on multiple devices.
You can even look up messages where you are mentioned directly with the “Mentions” feature available on the side menu on Arattai, which WhatsApp lacks.
Availability and User Experience
Like WhatsApp, Arattai Messenger is available on all major operating systems, except for web apps. We cannot use Arattai Messenger on web browsers on desktops. Except for that, Arattai is available everywhere, making it easily accessible.
Coming to user experience, we are already accustomed to different messaging platforms and changes in their designs and wordings for similar features. Arattai Messenger is no different. It takes some time to get used to the app and the terminology used for features.
Data Handling and Ownership
What happens on WhatsApp can be seen as ads on other Meta platforms. Though everything on WhatsApp is end-to-end encrypted, the products we talk about via calls or texts on WhatsApp magically appear as ads on Instagram and Facebook. Meta, the parent company of WhatsApp, handles all the data, and once we use their platforms, we own nothing of our data. When we permanently delete our accounts, our data is deleted automatically after 30 days, as per the claims. WhatsApp stores the data on its servers around the world. There is no clear information regarding the transfer of data from other countries to their servers in the US.
Arattai Messenger’s user data is stored in the servers of their respective countries or the Zoho servers around the world. They are not stored on third-party servers like Azure, AWS, etc. Since there are no major social media platforms from Zoho, we may not see ads for the products we talk about on Arattai.
As per the Arratai Messenger page on Google Play Store, Zoho does not share user data with third parties, and they encrypt the data in transit. Users can request to delete the data which may be by deleting the Arattai account.
Permissions to Grant to Use Arattai
To install and use Arattai Messenger on your Android devices, you need to give 10 permissions. They include Location, Device and other IDs, Messages, Audio, Photos and videos, Files and docs, App activity, App info and performance, Contacts, and Personal info, which includes Name, User IDs, and Phone number.
You can use Arattai Messenger without giving all these permissions, but most of the features become unusable. If you do not permit access to Contacts on your phone, you cannot see who is on Arattai Messenger. According to App Store’s Arattai page, the app collects your Contact data, your identifying data like device info, personal info, and contact info.
The permissions Arattai seeks to function better do not have any suspicious ones. The only thing that bothers us is how they handle user data, even though they claim to employ an industry-leading commitment to user privacy.
Is Arattai better than WhatsApp?
Currently, WhatsApp is a lot better than Arattai Messenger. But the developers at Zoho are working to introduce new features with future updates to make it a better alternative to WhatsApp without compromising on any feature. We need to wait and see how they unfold.
Is the Arattai app safe?
There is no clarity on the end-to-end encryption of chats on Arattai Messenger. Arrattai’s official website only claims to have end-to-end encryption on calls, specifically. Without end-to-end encryption, no messenger app is reliable for messaging between users, as the developers can access and see the messages.
Conclusion
Arattai Messenger is a hope from India to compete with WhatsApp and finally replace it for texting, audio, and video calls. But in its current stage, Arattai is nowhere near WhatsApp, as it needs to introduce industry-leading security features to the users. WhatsApp and Arattai Messenger have the same reach, but WhatsApp takes an advantage with its user base. When you sign up for WhatsApp, you see many of your friends already on it. Arattai, on the other hand, is starting to gain its own user base now.