WhatsApp in Windows 11 is no longer a native desktop client, but a web app that doesn’t use your RAM memory efficiently.
Since early November, WhatsApp has been showing notifications in the Windows 11 app that a major update is coming. It’s now available via the Microsoft Store, where you can only download WhatsApp Beta. Meta is completely overhauling the desktop client of WhatsApp. Or rather, throwing it in the trash, as the new Windows version of WhatsApp is no longer really a desktop app.
The new app runs on WebView2, while the previous version ran on UWP. WhatsApp on Windows is now the web version packaged in a WebView container. So WhatsApp goes from a web app to a native desktop client back to a web app again. Why Meta is making this change is open to speculation.
RAM Guzzler
The transition to WebView2 seems to have immediate implications for WhatsApp’s performance. Windows Latest compared the two versions and found that the new version consumes much more RAM. The old version uses barely 10 MB for the login screen and at most 100 to 300 MB when the app is active, depending on how many messages need to be loaded.
The new version, however, turns out to consume tenfold. The login screen already requires 300 MB of RAM, and loading the application increases consumption to over 1 GB of RAM. Windows Latest observed peaks of 2 to even 3 GB of RAM during active use of the messaging app. That’s not all: the new WhatsApp version still suffers from other teething problems such as longer loading times and compatibility issues with Windows notifications.
For now, Meta is letting the two versions coexist, but at some point, you will be automatically logged out of WhatsApp and need to log in again via your phone. Perhaps at that moment you’ll be transferred to the new app, along with one year of chat history. If Meta doesn’t address these teething problems, it seems there’s little added value in using the Windows app instead of the web version.