Along with Messenger and Kik, Telegram has been one of the pioneering messaging platforms for bots. Indeed, their bot API was launched more than two years ago already, in July 2015.

Since then, a tremendous amount of bots popped on the platform, with various level of utility. To save you some tedious digging, we went in, tried a countless amount of them and went back with our top telegram bots. Without further ado, here are our top telegram bots:

2017 TOP TELEGRAM BOTS

1/ STOREBOT — Bot Discovery

Storebot is a bot made to help you find more bots: it’s no self-replicating AI yet, but will pass as close enough. After a quick setup (time zone and age for NSFW telegram bots), you can start the discovery.

You can display the top charts, search bots directly, or browse them by categories. Here’s what Storebot had for me when I searched for “cryptocurrency”:

It’s one of the best designed bot on Telegram, give it a try at least to see what a Telegram bot can do!

2/ IFTTT — Almost any app, straight in Telegram

If This Then That is a tool which lets you create workflow linking two different apps together, such as: “When I publish a new tweet, add it to a Google Sheets.”

Telegram is fully integrated on IFTTT which lets you interact with any apps you have connected to IFTTT, straight from the Telegram chat: you can trigger an external service simply by messaging a bot.

Considering the countless amount of possibilities this integration offers, it’s definitely one of the most potent bots available now on Telegram. Check it out.

3/ DELOREANBOT — Reminders in Telegram

Don’t let yourself get fooled, this bot is sadly not a time machine. Unlike Slack, Telegram does not have a built-in reminder function and this is precisely what Delorean_Bot is offering.

The UI is neat, and the bot is really straightforward and easy to use. The features are a bit limited, but more than sufficient for simple reminders. Try it out.

4/ CHANNELS2RSS BOT — Telegram outside Telegram

Telegram is awesome, but yet have to conquer the world. Hopefully, there are bots available to give your telegram groups more reach. Channels2Rss Bot does exactly what it names would suggest.

The bot generate an RSS feed from any channel or group of your choice, making it easy for non-Telegram users to at least follow the discussion happening on the platform. What’s not to like?

5/ POLLBOT — Poll in Telegram

Reaching a team decision is hard; some projects stall just because they are not owned or pushed by anyone, or blocked by some. Every messaging apps now have polling solutions, either built-in or available with a bot.

Telegram is no exception and that’s precisely what Pollbot is about. It lets you create bots you can then send to your friend. It’s unobtrusive and tremendously simplify collaborative workflows. For large groups which need to reach a consensus (hello cryptocurrencies), it’s a must!

6/ MOONKEYBOT — Cryptocurrencies “Pump” notifications

Telegram is the home of cryptocurrencies. Indeed, almost all crypto have an official Telegram group. Along with Reddit, this is where most of the community discussion takes place.

Considering the pool of crypto-enthusiast on Telegram, it’s no surprise to find a top telegram crypto bot on this list. MoonKeyBot does one thing and does it well: it notifies you of pumps (important price movements) in formation.

7/ WIKI — Wikipedia, without leaving Telegram

Wikipedia will be 17 years old soon, and for most of us “digital native”, it had been here since our very early days on the internet. Have the knowledge base of the world available at hand is awesome, but what makes it even better are all its integrations.

Wiki is one of these. It let you search and pull entries from ANY chat on Telegram, using the @wiki “query” command. Here is an example on @wiki Telegram:

No more excuses for not checking the wiki!

8/ CHATS AGAINT HUMANITY — Cards Against Humanity, in a chat

Have you ever played the game Cards Against Humanity? It’s a party game in which players complete fill-in-the-blank statements using words or phrases typically deemed as offensive, risqué or politically incorrect printed on playing cards.

It’s fun and translates pretty well into chat form. The bot was made a year ago, by a fellow Redditor (u/davepike/) and received an instant traction from the community. Give it a go with your friends!

9/ RECAST.AI Unsatisfied with the selection? Build your own Slack bot

If you didn’t find a match in the list above, you can still build your very own chatbot. We offer a bot building platform, allowing you to easily create bots powered by a strong NLP technology. With the Bot connector, you can connect your bots to the main channels in minutes, including Messenger, Kik, Slack or Twitter.

Don’t know where to start? Check our tutorial: Make your first bot on Recast.AI

If you would like to go further, you can also access our NLP directly with the API.

GOING FURTHER

Telegram has been very aggressive on its bot platform, constantly adding new features allowing to create smarter and more integrated bots. Six months after the beginning of bots on the platform, they added inline bots (like @wiki) which can be triggered from any chats.

Telegram doesn’t have as much visibility as Messenger for bots, yet the features it offers to bot builders are impressive. 2018 will be an interesting year for bot platforms, stay tuned.