COMPARISONS
How to compare WhatsApp monitoring tools.
Feature grids flatter whoever writes them. Questions with checkable answers do not, so this page starts with the three we would put to any vendor, including us.
For a sales leader whose reps use the WhatsApp Business app on company phones, three questions separate the tools that show you those conversations: how long the record is kept, whether deleted and edited messages are captured with both timestamps, and whether the vendor publishes uptime and capture-lag figures. This page holds every comparison we maintain, and our checklist.
01 — THE CHECKLIST
The three questions to ask any vendor.
Each one decides something you will only otherwise discover months in. Our own answers are on the pricing and reliability pages, where they can be checked.
| Why it matters | What to accept as an answer | |
|---|---|---|
| How long is the archive kept? | Several tools in this category keep 6 months and say so quietly. You find out in month seven, when the conversation you need is gone. | A retention period you choose, stated in writing on the pricing page. |
| Are deleted and edited messages captured? | The messages that get deleted are the ones you most need a record of. | The original text, with the time it was sent and the time it was removed, not just a note that a deletion happened. |
| Does the vendor publish uptime and capture-lag figures? | A monitoring tool that is down is not capturing, and without published figures you will never know it was. | Monthly numbers on a public page, with the measurement method published in full. |
02 — EVERY COMPARISON WE MAINTAIN
The comparisons, one page each.
Every claim about another vendor's product is drawn from their own material, or it says, on the page, that it is unverified.
WhatsApp Business app or API?
Whether you need the API to see your team. The 3 routes, and who should choose the API.
Shared inbox or a management view?
Is your reps' problem replying, or your problem seeing? One question sorts the purchase.
Linking your laptop to each number
The do-it-yourself route: how to do it, what you get, and the 3 limits that end it.
TeamInspector alternative
Retention, sending and the access log, with every claim about their product sourced and dated.
Cooby alternative
Where an inbox layer ends and a system of record begins.
TimelinesAI alternative
Shared-inbox syncing compared with append-only capture.
WhatsApp API inbox tools
When the official Business API is the right answer instead of us.
Enterprise archiving
What compliance archivers do that we do not, and the reverse.
WhatsApp tracker apps
Tracker apps, call loggers, CRM extensions and a management view: what each one sees, and where it has to be installed.
What we deliberately do not do
We never send messages from your numbers. There is no send path in the product: no broadcasts, no auto-replies, no campaigns, and there is not going to be one. If you want outbound, use the official WhatsApp Business API; if you want a record of what your team actually said, that is us.
There is no stealth mode. Your team is told which numbers are archived, and every manager view of a conversation is written to a log that nobody can edit and nobody can switch off. Nothing is installed on anyone's personal phone: we link company-owned numbers with the same mechanism WhatsApp Web uses, and how the link works, including what can break, is published in full.
Compare it on your own numbers.
Fifteen minutes, live, with your data. Bring another vendor's answers to the three questions and we will go through them with you.
WAOversight is an independent product and is not affiliated with or endorsed by WhatsApp or Meta.