10 best chat room apps for Android

Chat rooms don’t get the love they once did. AOL Instant Messenger, IRC, and other similar chat services don’t really exist much anymore despite the spike in data-driven messaging services. However, there are still some excellent chat room experiences out there if you know where to find them. There are a ton of messenger apps that allow for group chats. In fact, very nearly all of them do to our knowledge.

However, those apps rarely have public chat rooms to join and engage with random people. If all you want is group messaging, we might recommend our best messenger apps list. Otherwise, let’s check out the best chat room apps for Android.

The best chat room apps for Android

Amino 

Price: Free with in-app purchases

Amino is a popular chat room app similar in scope to apps like Band or Discord. There are various communities for various topics, and you can create your own if you want to. Discord likes to cater primarily to gamers, but Amino likes to cater to as many people as possible, and that’s probably why it’s so popular. You can explore the app, join communities, chat with people, and customize your profile. However, people stay for the various extras like Instagram and Snapchat-style stories, the ability to add polls and quizzes, and even watch videos or read blogs. It’s a weirdly neat all-in-one style chat if you’re into that sort of thing.

Band

Price: Free

The band is a popular group chat app focusing on general topics. You can create ones for work, sports, school, video games, family, friends, etc. It has features that work for almost all of those kinds of things. The actual chat experience is very similar to your standard chat app, so there are no surprises. The app doesn’t have public chats like many others. However, plenty of organizations and groups use this, so that you may run into it on your own eventually. We want more power over things like notifications because this app sends many of them; otherwise, it’s a decent experience.

Discord

Price: Free / $9.99 per month

Discord is one of the most popular chat room apps on the list. It’s predominately for gamers rather than regular folks. However, ordinary folks can use it as well. It’s just a chat room app with many features, so don’t feel you only have to use it for gaming. This one mostly has private chat rooms, but there are public chats if you search for them. Some other features include voice channels and direct messages between individual members, and you can join as many servers as you want to. It’s also entirely free to use. The $9.99 subscription only adds cosmetic extras like GIF emotes, and the ability to use any emote on any server.

HelloTalk or Tandem

Price: Free / Varies

HelloTalk and Tandem are excellent chat apps for learning a new language. The premise is that you know a language, and you want to learn a language. The app tries to link you up with someone who knows the language you wish to learn and wants to learn your language. The two of you then help each other figure everything out. It’s not a traditional chatroom, but it works pretty well. Just don’t be someone who uses an app like this for something other than its intended purpose.

Chat Rooms – Find Friends

Price: Free

Chat Gum is another chat room app. It resembles apps like WhatsApp and Telegram but stands out with features like creating chat rooms and sending/receiving stickers. It’s popular, especially among teenagers and young adults. Although the application does not have an attractive user interface, its other pros include its free usage, diverse features, and broad user appeal. However, it can be addictive, challenging to find suitable chat rooms, and may contain explicit content.

Galaxy – Chat Rooms & Games 

Price: Free with in-app purchases

Galaxy is a free and user-friendly chat and gaming app with a large and active community, offering various chat rooms and games. It has a vibrant community and diverse chat rooms. The application allows you to create your own unique character and meet people as that character. The application is also ad-free and does not have any subscription. However, it may be unsuitable for serious gaming or online communities due to the risk of spam harassment and occasional technical problems. Given the app’s limited privacy features, privacy-conscious users may also want to be cautious.

Telegram

Price: Free

Telegram is one of the most popular messaging apps on the list. It functions primarily as a private chat app with group chat functionality. However, you can create chat rooms in the app (channels). These channels are private. However, many organizations, people, groups, etc., communicate their chats publicly. You can also create media and share the link with whomever you want. It would be awesome if Telegram had a public chat room community, but the private one is so good that it’s almost as good. You may need to search around for readily available channels on Google Search.

Viber

Price: Free with in-app purchases

Viber is like a much more popular version of Nimbuzz. It focuses primarily on text chats, voice calls, video chats, and fun stuff like stickers, group chats, and others. You can also make phone calls to landlines Skype style for a nominal fee. However, it has a selection of public chat rooms for meeting new people, discussing topics, etc. You can find chats for anything or create your own, and people will join eventually (probably). The in-app purchases are for regular phone call fees and sticker packs. The majority of the service is completely free to use.

Yoho 

Price: Free

YoHo Group Voice Chat is a free app that allows users to create and join voice chat rooms with up to 100 participants, mainly popular among gamers and online communities. The thing that sets it apart is that it specifically caters to the audience who prefers voice notes over texts.  Other pros of the app include its free and easy-to-use nature, high-quality audio, and various features. However, there are privacy concerns regarding data collection, the potential for spam and harassment, and occasional technical issues.

Zello

Price: Free

Zello is a dual-purpose app. It has a walkie-talkie feature with a push-to-talk style that lets you communicate with anybody on the fly. However, this one also has a variety of chat room-style features as well. You can create public or private chat rooms with up to 6,000 users at once and use the PTT function to talk to them ham radio style. We don’t recommend this for your standard, old-school Internet chat room experience. However, it does have its charms.

If we missed any great chat room apps for Android, tell us about them in the comments! You can also click here to check out our latest Android app and game lists!