How do you view Telegram

Resources are abundant, you can find anything,

I’d call it a true search engine in every sense.

Smooth, clean, at the software level, even Whatsapp with a rocket can’t catch up.

Telegram has 1 billion global users, with a core development team of just 30 and fewer than 60 total employees, without even an HR department.
Its security, stability, and smoothness stem from the MTProto protocol, invented by the founder’s brother, Nikolai Durov.
Nikolai is a mathematician with PhDs in mathematics and physics, and a three-time gold medalist in the International Mathematical Olympiad.
Telegram once announced that anyone who successfully cracks intercepted call messages will receive a $200,000 Bitcoin reward.
Telegram supports single-file uploads up to 4GB (premium users; 2GB for regular users), surpassing WeChat (1GB) and WhatsApp (2GB).
With unlimited cloud storage, no speed limits, no file deletion, shareability, and searchability, it outshines many cloud storage services.
Large files are transmitted in parallel chunks, enabling extremely fast upload/download speeds.
It supports groups of up to 200,000 members and channels with unlimited subscribers. WeChat groups cap at 500, WhatsApp at 1,024. The largest channel (@hamster_kombat) has over 34 million subscribers.

To prevent message spam, group admins can limit members’ message frequency, from one every 30 seconds to one per hour.

Type two words in a phone chat without sending, and the same draft instantly appears on your iPad/PC. Drafts are encrypted and cloud-synced, a detail most chat apps overlook.

Switching devices syncs chats and files instantly, with messages arriving almost in real-time.

Only “secret chats” use end-to-end encryption; regular messages use client-server encryption, meaning Telegram’s servers can theoretically access content, enabling unlimited cloud syncing.

Telegram perfectly embodies the Russian programmer’s tradition and pursuit: mathematical roots, extreme performance, and engineering aesthetics.

It fulfills all fantasies about a super app, supporting real-time communication from small groups to ones with tens of thousands; you can watch adult content quickly without lag and find like-minded groups; shopping offers nearly every service and product; for serious learning, you can find experts and resources. Its baseline is exceptionally high, and its potential is limitless, proving that technology itself is neutral—there’s nothing this app can’t do, depending on how you use it. But a friend of mine noticed the app’s cache gets pretty large, no idea what random stuff they’ve been looking at.

This insanely powerful software—I still can’t wrap my head around how it instantly loads tens of thousands of messages.

On the flip side, it really shows how subpar WeChat and QQ are in comparison. (My country China's main social media tool)

I’m probably a heavy Telegram user, having used it for years! I even had a two-year premium subscription, though I’ve since canceled it. I use three bots: one for book searches, linked directly to Z-Library—type a book title, and if it’s there, it shows up instantly, downloadable in under 30 seconds! Another is a music bot, connected to most domestic music libraries; in all my years of use, I rarely can’t find a song I want. The third is a search bot—pretty much any info I need, it finds, though there’s a lot of adult content, which I treat as post-dinner entertainment. I also occasionally browse posts on it. The bots are like personal assistants: tell them what you need, and they deliver instantly. I love this app! Plus, the wallet feature supports cryptocurrency—I’ve bought a few books and explored crypto a bit. It’s super convenient for listening to music, finding books, and searching. So smooth!

As a backend dev with years of experience, I've wondered the same about Telegram's large groups—handling real-time messaging for tens of thousands without choking, all while keeping the UI buttery smooth. And yeah, the no-government-oversight angle makes it feel like the Wild West of the internet. You're spot on: non-devs often chalk it up to "only a few people chat," but that's missing the architectural wizardry. Telegram's team didn't slap arbitrary caps like some apps; they engineered for the apocalypse scenario where everyone spams at once. Let me break down how they pull this off, based on their MTProto protocol, distributed setup, and optimizations.


Core Architecture: Distributed Servers and MTProto Magic
Telegram isn't a monolith—it's a distributed system with data centers (DCs) worldwide (e.g., DC1 in Miami, DC2 in Amsterdam). Messages route to the nearest cluster for sub-100ms latency, even in massive groups. The secret sauce is MTProto, their custom protocol (invented by Nikolai Durov, the math whiz). It's lightweight, optimized for mobile/unreliable networks, and handles encryption without bloating payloads:

Client-Server Encryption for Cloud Chats: Regular group messages use client-server encryption (AES-256 + RSA-2048). Servers can read them (for cloud sync), but it's fast—no heavy E2E overhead for every message. Secret chats flip to full E2E, but groups lean cloud for scale.
Message Handling Flow:

You send a message → Encrypted via MTProto → Hits the nearest server.
Server broadcasts to subscribed clients (via WebSockets or long-polling fallbacks).
For a 50k-person group, it doesn't fan out naively (that'd kill perf). Instead, uses message brokers and queues (like custom Redis-inspired systems) to async-process and route.


Scalability: MTProto supports UDP/TCP/HTTP transports, with padding (12-1024 bytes) and SHA-256 hashing for quick auth without full re-encrypts. It processes billions of messages/day on <60 devs by focusing on efficiency—no bloat.

This setup ensures real-time delivery: Messages arrive in ~50-200ms globally, even if 10k users are online. They benchmark for spikes (e.g., viral channels) using telemetry to auto-scale resources.
Why Groups Don't Lag (Even in Extremis)
You nailed it—Telegram designs for worst-case: everyone messaging simultaneously. No hard caps on active chatters; groups hit 200k members, channels unlimited. Here's the tech:

Lazy Loading + Infinite Scroll: UI doesn't preload the entire history (up to 1M messages/group, but cached smartly). New messages stream in via diffs—only changes sync, not full re-renders. Switch devices? Instant sync via cloud storage (no file size limits beyond 4GB premiums).
Fanout Optimization: Broadcasting isn't 1-to-N hell. Servers use sharding (consistent hashing by group ID) to spread load across clusters. Passive users (lurkers) get batched/minimal updates—90% less work than active ones. Relays (multi-threaded proxies) handle distribution, offloading from core guild processes.
Caching & Queues: Redis/Memcached for hot data (user sessions, recent messages). Message queues (custom, like Kafka-lite) decouple sending/storage—upload hits queue, then async-persists to PostgreSQL/distributed BigFiles storage. Media? CDN-cached globally for instant loads.
Rate Limiting Smarts: Admins throttle (30s-1hr per user) to curb spam, but under the hood, servers cap ~30 msgs/sec per chat to prevent floods without blocking legit bursts.
UI/Animation Polish: Native apps (Swift/Kotlin) use efficient rendering—60fps animations via GPU acceleration. No jank because messages are delta-patched (e.g., only update the new line), and drafts/media previews load progressively.

If everyone in a 50k group spams? Auto-throttling + relays kick in; servers spin up ephemeral instances via cloud (IaaS/PaaS). They've stress-tested this—think Hamster Kombat's 34M-sub channel without collapse.