By Aditi S Bade
In a sudden burst of momentum, Arattai, a messaging app developed by Zoho Corporation,
has caught India’s tech community by storm. Its name, derived from Tamil, means roughly
“to chat” or casual conversation, and it’s rapidly being positioned as a credible rival to
WhatsApp in the Indian messaging space. Over just a few days in late September 2025,
Arattai recorded a 100-fold jump in traffic, with daily signups reportedly soaring from about
3,000 to 350,000. At one point, it even momentarily overtook WhatsApp and Telegram in
India’s app store rankings. Zoho has scrambled to beef up its backend infrastructure to keep
pace with the surge.
This sudden spike has been fuelled partly by calls to adopt more homegrown tech, echoing
the Aatmanirbhar Bharat push. Arattai offers features like those of WhatsApp, text, voice
messages, audio/video calls, file sharing, group chats, all packaged under Zoho’s promise of
privacy, security, and zero ads. However, there is a caveat: while voice and video calls are
encrypted end-to-end, text message encryption is still under development. Zoho’s leadership
has emphasized an open, interoperable architecture, rejecting the idea of building yet another
closed “walled garden” messaging platform. One feature that sets Arattai apart: it reportedly
offers an Android TV version of the app—something WhatsApp has not rolled out yet (as of
2025).
The brains behind Arattai are Zoho Corporation, headquartered in Chennai and co‐founded
by Sridhar Vembu and Tony Thomas. Vembu, an outspoken tech leader, has publicly
criticized monopoly trends in global tech and insisted that Arattai should not become another
one. He has also suggested that messaging protocols should become interoperable in the same
way UPI or email systems work. Zoho, beyond Arattai, already has a suite of business and
productivity tools (CRM, email, office suite) and is well-known in the enterprise space.
Despite its meteoric rise, Arattai faces a formidable challenge: WhatsApp has deep network
effects, hundreds of millions of users, third-party integrations, business tools, and global
reach. Also, users have flagged technical hiccups like OTP delays and missing encryption for
texts as concerns to be addressed.
The choice of a Tamil name has itself triggered debates; some say it may not roll off the
tongues of users in non-Tamil regions. Still, supporters argue that the regional identity is part
of its charm and a signal of linguistic diversity. If Arattai wants to sustain momentum, it must
maintain reliability, complete encryption roll-out, build integrations, and expand its user
ecosystem fast. For now, though, it has made a bold splash, turning a Tamil word into a name
on every Indian’s tech radar.