Signal. Open source, non-profit, very good privacy defaults. Telegram seems even worse than whatsapp to be honest because they don't even have encryption on by default.

Signal, because I have more trust in Moxie that the Telegram team.

I have not used Telegram though, so that’s not a preference based on usability, just on trust.

Telegram because it works across all my devices and so far has been adopted by friends. Closest to iMessage for any non Apple device for me.

I prefer Element, but apparently it's not popular enough even among HN users, so don't even hope. Signal is popular among the HN users, because it was hyped for a long time by tech-journalists as a pinnacle of secure messaging, but as an app it's even worse than WhatsApp. And not very popular outside of HN. Telegram is very popular in Russia&neighbours and only mildly popular in Europe, even less so in USA. Arguably the best of 3 in terms of usability, HN users don't like it because it has some non-standard e2e encryption, which is not enabled by default in private chats.

Also, FYI, Telegram is going to introduce some paid features soon, but it's not completely clear what they'll be. There just was some talking about that's it about the time they are going to monetize it, but I'm not sure if they announced what exactly becomes paid and what doesn't.

Prefer Telegram. My p2p communication is minimal and I manage dozens of groups with thousands of members. Telegram not only handles this but provides a lot of tools to manage groups effectively.

Sessions is my go to for privacy related messaging. It's a fork of Signal with data pushed over a decentralised network.

I would prefer signal, but I use Telegram. Everyone I talk to likes the feature set, so Signal would seem like a step backward.

Signal is just another walled garden, making it a no-go for me.