WhatsApp on Windows 11 recently got a ‘major’ upgrade, and you’ll probably hate it because it only loads Web.whatsapp.com into a WebView2 container. This means that WhatsApp is ready on Windows 11, and it becomes absolutely useless in terms of performance.
WhatsApp is one of those Windows apps that went from being a web wrapper to becoming a native app and back to the web again after so many years of investment.
WhatsApp for Windows was originally an Electron app, and after years of investment it was eventually replaced with UWP. Four years later, WhatsApp is abandoning the original WinUI/UWP core idea and going back to WebView2.
i blame layoffs
My understanding is that the recent layoffs at Meta led by Mark Zuckerberg have disbanded the entire team behind the original WhatsApp. I don’t see any other reason why Meta would drop its native app for Windows. Meta will save costs by maintaining the web app codebase on Windows, but you’ll hate the experience.
How bad is the new WhatsApp for Windows 11?
Our tests showed that the new Chromium/WebView2-based WhatsApp for Windows 11 uses up to 300MB of RAM when you’re on the login screen and doing nothing. On the other hand, old/native WhatsApp only uses 18 MB of RAM and goes down to less than 10 MB even when idle on the login screen.
After logging in, WhatsApp (new) memory usage increased to 2GB While trying to load all my chats. On average, it 1.2GB used while idle in background,
You will realize how bad it is when I show you the benchmarks of native WhatsApp for comparison. I tested old/native WhatsApp, and it only uses 190MB most of the time, and goes down to less than 100MB when completely idle. In the worst case, it will reach 300 MB, which can only happen if the chat is actually active.
From the looks of things, it The new WhatsApp for Windows 11 could touch 3GB of RAM If you have a lot of active conversations.
This is absolute garbage, and should not be allowed inside the Microsoft Store. You are better off using WhatsApp on the web (Edge/Chrome) than updating/downloading this new WebView2-based app.
In fact, it appears that WhatsApp Web (web.whatsapp.com) in any browser is less terrible than this WebView2 container.
The new WhatsApp is a performance nightmare
An app can use a lot of memory, and that doesn’t mean it’s a nightmare, but the problem with the new WhatsApp is that it feels sluggish. You will notice sluggish performance, long loading times, and other performance issues when browsing different conversations.
We also noticed that it doesn’t work properly with Windows notifications. It also conflicts with Windows 11’s Do Not Disturb mode or Active Hours. And there are also delayed notification issues.
Can You Avoid This New WhatsApp Upgrade on Windows 11? yes, but not for very long
Windows Latest found that WhatsApp version 2.2584.3.0 replaces the native (WinUI/UWP) app and is becoming available in all regions via the Microsoft Store. Do not download it, and you may be allowed to use the original app for the next days.
However, Windows Latest has revealed that all users will eventually be logged out and forced to use the WebView2-based WhatsApp.
This ‘upgrade’ is available as a native experience for WhatsApp on Apple Watch, which has 115 million users, while Windows has more than a billion active monthly devices. Obviously, the numbers aren’t always enough, and I’m not sure if I can really blame Meta when Microsoft doesn’t even make native apps for Windows anymore.