⚡ Instant Messaging Apps in the United Kingdom

Instant messaging apps allow users to communicate in real time via text, voice, and video, often with group chats, file sharing, and end-to-end encryption.

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (UK) is a Western European country with a population of over 67 million people.

According to our statistics, instant messaging apps are detected on 3.1% of websites from the United Kingdom.

Statistics based on 159K+ analyzed websites. About this data

⭐ Most Popular in 2026

The following chart shows the top instant messaging apps on websites in the United Kingdom in 2026, based on market share.

The most popular is WhatsApp, which dominates the market with a substantial 54.7% share.
It is followed by Telegram with 18.9% and Messenger with 12.4%.

WhatsApp 54.7%
Telegram 18.9%
Messenger 12.4%
Discord 12.3%
Snapchat 2.9%
Zoom 1.6%
Slack 1.4%
RingCentral 1%
WeChat 0.8%
Line 0.7%
Microsoft Teams 0.7%
Viber 0.5%
Matrix 0.4%
Gitter 0.1%
QQ 0.1%

🚀 Highlights

Here is a list of the top apps that are more popular in the United Kingdom than worldwide.
Differences between global and country rankings are shown in parentheses.

4. Discord ^(-1)
5. Snapchat ^(-6)
6. Zoom ^(-6)
7. Slack ^(-6)
8. RingCentral ^(-11)
11. Microsoft Teams ^(-4)
13. Matrix ^(-3)
14. Gitter ^(-3)
17. Signal ^(-4)
18. IRC ^(-2)

✨ Best Instant Messaging Apps

Below is a more detailed list of 22 instant messaging apps used on sites from the United Kingdom, ranked by their market share.

Rank	Name	Market share
1	WhatsApp Menlo Park, California, United States An instant messaging and Voice over IP service owned by Meta. Free	54.7%
2	Telegram Dubai, United Arab Emirates A cloud-based messaging app for mobile and desktop platforms focused on security, speed, and privacy. Free$$$	18.9%
3	Messenger Menlo Park, California, United States An instant messaging service developed by Meta, available on Android, iOS, and web platforms. Free	12.4%
4	Discord San Francisco, California, United States An instant messaging and VoIP social platform that allows users to communicate via text chat, voice, and video. Free$2.99+	12.3%
5	Snapchat Santa Monica, California, United States A messaging and social networking app that lets users send photos and videos ("Snaps") that disappear after being viewed by default. Free	2.9%
6	Zoom San Jose, California, United States A cloud-based communications platform that enables video meetings, audio conferencing, phone calls, and team chat across devices. Free$15.99+/user/month	1.6%
7	Slack San Francisco, California, United States A cloud-based team communication platform for businesses, currently owned by Salesforce. Free$8.75+/month	1.4%
8	RingCentral Belmont, California, United States A business communications platform that includes contact center and AI-powered phone, video, event management, and automation solutions. $20+/user/month	1%
9	WeChat Shenzhen, China A Chinese instant messaging, social media, and mobile payment app that has evolved into a super-app combining communication, commerce, and everyday services. Free	0.8%
10	Line Tokyo, Japan A Japanese instant messaging and social networking app often described as a super-app because it integrates services such as a digital wallet, news feed, digital comics, media streaming, and shopping. Free	0.7%
11	Microsoft Teams Redmond, Washington, United States A proprietary business collaboration platform built for hybrid work, offering chat, video conferencing, file storage, and application integration. Free$9.99+/month	0.7%
12	Viber Tokyo, Japan A free, cross-platform instant messaging and calling application owned by Rakuten. Free	0.5%
13	Matrix London, United Kingdom A set of open APIs for open-federated Instant Messaging, Voice over IP and Internet of Things communication. Free	0.4%
14	Gitter London, United Kingdom An open-source chat and networking platform for software developers based on the Matrix protocol. Free	0.1%
15	QQ Shenzhen, China A Chinese instant messaging software platform. Free	0.1%
16	KakaoTalk Jeju-si, Jeju-do, Korea A Korean instant messenger for chats and real-time voice and video calls. Free	0.1%
17	Signal Mountain View, California, United States An open-source, privacy-focused messaging app for instant messaging, voice calls, and video calls. FreeOpen source	0.1%
18	IRC A text-based chat system for instant messaging supported by many clients such as mIRC, XChat, ChatZilla and others. Free	0.06%
19	Rocket.Chat Wilmington, Delaware, United States An open-source communication platform designed for organizations with high security, privacy, and data sovereignty requirements that supports real-time chat, voice, and video across web, desktop, and mobile clients. FreeOpen source$$$	0.06%
20	Webex San Jose, California, United States A cloud-based video conferencing and collaboration solution that enables users to hold online meetings, video calls, webinars, and team conversations with integrated chat and collaboration features. Free$14.50+/user/month	0.04%
21	Zalo Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam A Vietnamese mobile instant messenger and social media service. Free99,000 VND+/month	0.04%
22	XMPP Parker, Colorado, United States A set of open technologies for instant messaging, presence, multi-party chat, voice and video calls, and collaboration.	0.02%

👉 See Also

🌎 Instant Messaging in other countries

🗃️ About This Data

We evaluate the popularity of technologies based on the number of websites where we detect their usage.
Technologies without a detectable web footprint, and those we do not track, are not reflected in the calculated market share.
This report is based on the analysis of 159,418 websites from the United Kingdom.
We currently track the presence of 26 instant messaging apps across the web.
Of these, 22 were detected on websites from the United Kingdom.
Statistics were last calculated on May 5, 2026.
For more details, see our methodology and disclaimer.