WhatsApp recently announced that it has more than 700 million monthly active members, sending a combined total of 30 billion messages a month. And after the release of the voice call facility, the popularity of WhatsApp is increasing every day. Unfortunately, majority of those users are not aware about the substitute apps offering the same features what WhatsApp offers. For instance LINE, the messenger application similar or more service offers in the similar genre.
In this article we will try to find out which one is better among them:
Price
LINE offers similar features like Whatsapp, yet the app comes for free and doesn't ask any charges for usage. On the other hand the Whatsapp offers one year free service to the Android users and will charge Rs. 55 every year.
File Sharing
The Whatsapp allows you to send photos, contact, video or images to other users while in LINE offers sending files across plethora of file formats.
Voice Call
LINE has introduced calling service since years while Whatsapp has just introduced the feature. Available on invitation basis, the whatsapp calling feature is still buggy with transmission delay and echo. We assume the said bugs will be fixed in the final release. However, the LINE voice calling service comes for free in domestic calling. For placing premium calls you need to pay Rs. 1.22 per minute. On the other hands Whatsapp is yet to announce whether their voice call service would offer free ISD calling or not.
While the LINE offers voice and video calls, the Facebook calling service has still been kept with voice calling only. The calling facility of LINE is also available across platforms including Android, Windows Phone, BlackBerry (Voice Only) and PC including Windows and Mac OS based systems. On the other hand Whatsapp voice call is only limited to Android users only. The Whatsapp official tipped that they will soon release the iOS version too.
Interface
The key reason behind the popularity of Whatsapp is its intuitive interface. The minimalist design is still simple with 3 tabs with mostly required features. In comparison, LINE offers numerous features categorised into 4 tabs. LINE interface also focuses more on icons than text labels. Featuring icons make the interface impressive but too many icons makes it cluttered too. On the other hand the text levels helps the novices learn features easily without other help.
Extra Features
Retaining the minimalist approach intact, Whatsapp limits itself to texting with regular emojis and voice calling only while the LINE offers you a variety of news, coupons, Facebook like timeline, quick video snapping, quick friend add and a lot more.
