Messenger vs True
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Messenger
Connect with friends and family through text, audio, and video calls. Share photos, videos, and large files, and express yourself with custom themes and animated content. Features an AI assistant for help and support.
- Text, audio, and video calls
- High-definition photo sharing
- Shared photo albums
- QR code connections
- Large file sharing (up to 100MB)
- Edit and unsend messages
- Disappearing messages
- AI assistant
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Messenger is a free messaging app that helps you connect with anyone, anywhere. Stay in touch with your friends and family, explore your interests with people like you, build your community, and share your vibe beyond words, all in one app. CHAT AND CALL ANYONE, ANYWHERE Find and connect with your friends and family on Facebook and Messenger, no phone number needed. GET INSTANT ANSWERS FROM YOUR AI ASSISTANT* Meta AI is your assistant that can answer any questions, give you advice, help with homework, and more. SEND YOUR PHOTOS IN HIGH DEFINITION Send and receive clearer, crisper picture of your favorite moments with Messenger. CREATE SHARED ALBUMS From a recent summer vacation to your grandma’s 80th birthday, create albums of photos and videos to share, organize and reminisce over important moments in your group chats. EASILY ADD NEW CONNECTIONS WITH QR CODES Connect with people you meet in real life by scanning their Messenger QR code or sharing yours via a link. SHARE LARGE FILES DIRECTLY IN CHAT Whether it’s a Word, PDF, or Excel doc, you can send large files up to 100MB right inside of Messenger. EDIT AND UNSEND MESSAGES Hit send too soon? You can edit the message up to 15 minutes after sending DISAPPEARING MESSAGES Some things aren’t meant to last forever. Choose how long your end-to-end encrypted chats stick around after they’ve been read. COME TOGETHER WITH YOUR COMMUNITIES Meaningfully connect with people like you from your school, neighborhood, and interest groups. GET IN YOUR FAVORITE CREATORS’ INNER CIRCLE Stay in the know with creators by joining their broadcast channels for authentic and casual content. UNLEASH YOUR IMAGINATION W/ META AI* Tap into your go-to creative partner to create, edit, animate images and more. CAPTURE EVERYDAY MOMENTS ON STORIES Highlight moments of your day using photos and videos that disappear after 24 hours in Stories. DROP A NOTE WITH YOUR THOUGHTS Stay connected with your friends by sharing quick updates that disappear after 24 hours. BRING YOUR VIBE TO YOUR CHATS Sometimes words just don’t cut it. Tap into more ways to express yourself with animated stickers, GIFs, reactions and more. SET THE MOOD OF YOUR CHAT WITH THEMES Customize your chat with a large and constantly evolving list of themes featuring popular artists, holidays, and more. *Meta AI is available in select languages and countries only, with more coming soon.
True
This app offers a private social networking experience focused on genuine connections with trusted individuals. It prioritizes user privacy by avoiding targeted advertising and data selling, creating a safe and positive space for sharing.
- Private by default sharing
- No ads or tracking
- User data ownership
- Focus on real friends
- Safe and positive environment
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Focused on people you really know, we’re making social a safe, happy place again without targeted advertising. • It’s the quality of relationships, not quantity, that make us happier. We’re building new ways to tell your story and strengthen your community • We don’t spy on you, read your cookies or follow you around the internet. You own your data, forever, and we’ll never sell or share it with anyone It’s time to try an honest solution. We’re thrilled to get you back to things that matter. • Private by default – photos, and updates only with people you trust. • No ads. No tracking. Ever. – we never sell your data. • Real friends, real life – original content from people you actually know, not influencers or brands. • Safe and positive – a drama-free space designed to make social a happy place again. The True Story True was founded in a lovely little mountain town filled with giant redwoods, beautiful valleys and neighbors who look after each other. It’s this real-life Happy Valley that inspired us to build a company that gets back to things that matter. Real friends and real life without commercial interruption. It’s the quality of our relationships, not the quantity, that make us happier. It’s the joy of making new friends and connecting with old ones that strengthen our sense of community. Somehow, in a rush for growth and profit, these feelings have been lost. Social today no longer feels like a Happy Valley, it’s more like we’re all living in a big creepy commercial. Big social companies are in the middle of our relationships. They’re taking our best intentions and selling them to the highest bidder. Well, we’re just not going to do that anymore. Why Should I Trust You Guys? There’s a lot of talk about privacy. Every few weeks, another big company gets caught in a new scandal. But there is never anything really done about it and we go on accepting the problem. The crazy thing is, this is never going to stop. As long as these companies make money by selling our personal information, they will always find ways to collect it. But we never signed up for this. We didn’t post our lives, families and personal relationships for sale. We did not agree to let these companies make money from being in the middle of our friendships. We believe you should be free to share your life without big brands competing for your attention. You should own your information and decide what you want to do with it. 3rd parties should never have access to your data. You should not be the product. We believe your privacy matters. We take it into consideration with every decision we make. You should believe we respect your privacy and trust we’ll do the right thing with your information. What’s Different About It? We just don’t think you can be yourself in a world of perfect pictures awash in a sea of influencers. Old-school social is for blasting your life to people you don’t really know, measured by standards you will never achieve. So we’ve built a new kind of threaded sharing that is private by default. Until now, no one has tried this before. It gives you control over things you want to share and who you want to share them with. By combining beautiful, edge-to-edge storytelling with private messaging, it’s the best of both worlds. What do we all love? Updates from real friends. But original thoughts and stories have gone missing in big social. Sadly, most content today is created by companies with an agenda. We share an endless stream of news and ideas pushed by these companies and no longer share our real lives. So we built a platform that only allows original content. There are no political arguments here. You come to True to see real updates from friends. Content they created themselves, not clickbait designed to hold your attention and manipulate opinion. True lets you… be you. Real sharing from real friends, we’re making social a safe, happy place again.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Messenger at 4.7 against True's 4.2. Messenger also leads on ratings volume (14M vs 9) and update cadence (weekly vs every 3 weeks). True's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 10) and ads (none vs shown). On price and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Messenger sells 10 one-off in-app purchases. True asks for nothing beyond the download.
Messenger holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 4.2. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Messenger has 14M ratings behind it against 9, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 66% of Messenger's written reviews are positive against 77% of True's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
Messenger ships an update weekly, True every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on September 24, 2026 and July 18, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Messenger | True |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.7 (14M ratings) — better | 4.2 (9 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 66.2% of reviews | 76.8% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 14M — better | 9 |
| Update frequency | Weekly — better | Every 3 weeks |
| Ads | Yes | No — better |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Ad-supported — better |
| Best chart rank | #9 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 15.1 | 13.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 255 MB | 102 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 12+ |
| Developer | Meta Platforms, Inc. | Hello Mobile Inc. |
Customer experience
Messenger
True
Bugs and requests
Messenger
Reported bugs
4 issues- Unable to log in or access account
- Messages failing to send or receive
- Unexpected app crashes and freezes
- Syncing issues between devices
Requested features
4 requests- Add option to delete or unsend messages
- Improve search functionality for chat history
- Introduce customizable notification settings
- Bring back old features like emoji reactions and location sharing
True
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Messenger
- Avatar Item$0.99
- Avatar Item$1.99
- Avatar Item$2.99
Show 7 moreShow fewer
- Avatar Item$3.99
- Avatar Item$4.99
- Avatar Item$6.99
- Avatar Item$7.99
- Avatar Item$8.99
- Avatar Item$9.99
- Avatar Item$10.99
True
No in-app purchases









