Explained: What is the difference between WhatsApp Communities and Groups

Meta-owned WhatsApp, recently launched its new Community feature, allowing users to club up to 20 WhatsApp groups together to form a community.

According to The Verge, Communities are designed to house multiple related groups within bigger organizations of people, such as a neighbourhood or a workplace.

But soon after the new feature was launched, users compared the new communities feature to groups and also raised questions on the need for the it.

To answer the questions, WhatsApp on Thursday, took to Twitter and shared a video which they captioned, "The difference between Communities and groups, explained."

https://twitter.com/WhatsApp/status/1590760264596877312

The WhatsApp group allows users to have everyone join a single conversation and helps to connect with family and friends, whereas Communities helps to bring all related groups into one place, connect with schools, neighbourhoods, camps and more, and keep everyone in the loop with the announcement group.

 

It is something like Slack or Discord, but with a WhatsApp spin (including end-to-end encrypted messages), and admins can share updates with an entire community through an announcements channel.

Communities were first tested by the company in April and are now being rolled out to everyone, reported The Verge.

A few new features that Meta is providing could enhance daily communications. The use of new in-chat polls could be beneficial for choosing a meeting time or a movie to watch.

Up to 32 people can now participate in video calls, which may be useful for a large video call in your new Community. Additionally, WhatsApp is increasing the maximum group size from 512 to 1024 individuals if you simply want to create a huge group, as per The Verge.