Developers the world over are constantly innovating. They design and develop messaging apps that let us stay connected conveniently to each other in this fast-paced modern world. Most of these apps require you to subscribe or pay to download and install. Quite a good number though are available absolutely free-of-charge.

We are going to highlight, and briefly explain, our selection of the top ten best free mobile messaging apps as of the year 2018. These apps generally let users make free voice and video calls, share instant messages, photos, and even text messages. We hope this will help you get started hassle-free. A selection of the 10 proven best free mobile messaging Apps.

#1: WhatsApp

This is perhaps the king of mobile messaging apps. It was jointly developed by Brian Acton and Jan Kuom. The app was taken over by Facebook Inc. in February 2014. It presently boasts of over 1.5 billion total users who are spread out in over 180 countries. It is also visited by 450 million users monthly and 315 million users daily.

The app basically lets users send each other instant messages, make video and voices calls, and send free text messages among other features. It does have a payment option which, at the moment, is limited to India alone. This is the WhatsApp Pay feature. All the transactions are processed by the Unified Payments Interface.

#2: Facebook Messenger

Closely trailing WhatsApp is the Facebook Messenger. As the name suggests, it was indeed developed by and is owned by Facebook Incorporated. It boasts 1.4 billion active users as of December 2017. It is presently installed on 87.5% of all Android devices in circulation. It does have a payment option which is still in beta version at the moment.

This messaging app enables two Facebook users to chat, exchange files and photos, make video calls, and even send each other text messages. It does not require the subscribers to share their telephone contacts as each user logs in with his Facebook username.

#3: WeChat

WeChat stands apart from the top messaging apps in that it originates from the most unlikely location - China. By the close of the year 2017, it had around 963 million monthly active users. It is basically a social chatting tool that lets its users chat freely with their friends. It also has a friend-finder tool which enables you to track the location of your contacts via the GPRS functionality.

It does support a range of payment options. These include Native In-App Payments, QR Code, Quick Pay, and In-App Web-Based. Because of this, it brings along the benefit of utmost convenience to its users.

#4: Telegram

This Russian-developed instant messaging app is cloud-based. This simply means that it stores all the conversations, files, and data in a cloud. It thereafter avails this data to its users regardless of their precise locations on the globe. It grants its users the ability to send instant messages, exchange photos, files, videos, audio, and stickers.

At the moment, it has 180 million active users globally. The app has variants that are compatible with various operating systems and platforms. Among these are iOS, Android, MacOS, Windows Phone, Linux, and Windows NT.