LINE OpenChat vs. Telegram Groups: Which Should Marketers Choose?

LINE OpenChat, which has been in beta since May with invited interest groups, has finally launched officially. It breaks the 500-member limit of LINE groups: the new OpenChat lets up to 5,000 people chat at the same time. It also adds admin roles, and members can set their own profile photo and nickname.

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With the new feature live, LINE users can find an OpenChat entry on the Home tab that opens a brand-new OPENCHAT page, featuring editor-picked LINE OpenChats and topic categories such as hobbies, sports and pets. OpenChat breaks the old 500-member cap on groups, allowing up to 5,000 members.

Several well-known Taiwanese bloggers, including Kocpc, iPhone News and AppleAlmond, have already opened LINE OpenChats. LINE has also curated recommended OpenChats by category, bringing users together around shared interests.

Editor's picks: OpenChats grouped by type

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Telegram has plenty of interest-based communities too, but finding them depends on enthusiastic users compiling lists. After all, Telegram itself is a messaging app with no commercial agenda.

Telegram also has dedicated group directory sites: https://www.telegram.url.tw/

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So how do LINE OpenChat and Telegram groups actually differ?

The bottom line first: in day-to-day use, Telegram is leaner in both speed and interface, and much faster. But LINE's huge user base is a major advantage. It's still too early to tell which app suits marketers best, so we'll keep watching.

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Let's compare the two platforms from a few angles:

Speed

The big LINE OpenChats see 999+ messages almost every day. On top of that, when you open an OpenChat, the thread jumps straight to the bottom, so every visit takes a moment to load and leaves you little motivation to scroll back up through the content.

Telegram groups handle this thoughtfully. When you open a chat, it stays at the last message you read, so you can scroll down at your own pace. If you want to jump to the bottom, there's a button in the lower-right corner, and the app rarely lags.

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Message volume

The LINE OpenChats I've joined, such as Weiguli, the Kocpc tech chat and an advertising and brand copywriting exchange, have roughly 2,000 to 5,000 members each. Most generate at least 200+ messages a day, mixed in with chats from friends, one-on-one conversations and official account messages. It's genuinely hard to read everything every day.

999+ messages every day

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In Taiwan, people mostly join Telegram for a specific purpose, such as Tzu Chi or SheQunDon. Telegram also lets you sort chats into folders, which makes reading and catching up on messages much cleaner.

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User base

LINE has about 21 million monthly active users in Taiwan, a penetration rate of 91.3%. Individuals, businesses and even the government treat LINE as a key real-time communication channel. That gives LINE a huge advantage: habits are the hardest thing to change, and here LINE holds all the cards.

Image source: LINE

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Telegram's recent surge in popularity got many marketers to download it. Over time, though, many discussion groups have been updated less and less often, a sign that some users still haven't made a habit of opening Telegram to read messages every day.

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The final word

The launch of LINE OpenChat gives users one more option. But with 999+ messages hitting LINE every day, it's easy to swipe them away as read, and over time many people simply leave the OpenChat.

Telegram offers a clean interface and simple controls, and compared with LINE OpenChat's anonymous chat-room format, its interest-based discussions tend to go deeper. Its one fatal weakness: whether users will carry their habits over from LINE to Telegram remains to be seen.

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