FAQ

What Are the Differences Between the Telegram API and the Bot API?

Bot API is a high-level HTTP interface to the Telegram API that makes it easy to develop bots and lets you focus on being more productive. We highly recommend it if you’re planning to develop complex bots.

On the other hand, the Telegram API is the main API for building Telegram clients. It uses the MTProto protocol which makes it a little more difficult to consume without a library unlike the Bot API. Telegram clients can be a GUI application on an end user’s device, or a process running continuously in a server.

While the Bot API can only be used to work with bot accounts, the Telegram API can be used to work with both bot and user accounts. As mentioned previously, the Bot API is simply an interface to work with bot accounts using the Telegram API.

When to Use the Telegram API?

• If you want to use bot capabilities that are currently not accessible from the Bot API (including, but not limited to, getting updates when messages are deleted).
• If you want to bypass the limits of the main instance of the Bot API without hosting your own instance (including, but not limited to, working with large files).
• If you want to develop your own Telegram app (e.g., alternative to Telegram Web).
• If you want to automate user accounts.
• If you have your own reasons.

Things to Consider

• You can’t interact with the Telegram API using webhooks. You have to maintain a connection with Telegram servers.
• You can’t use both the Bot API and the Telegram API at once for the same bot.
• Telegram API clients are required to persist data to properly consume the API.

What are the differences between MTKruto vs. TDLib?

TDLib is the official client library for the Telegram API. It is ideal, cross-platform, and contains everything required to build fully-featured Telegram clients, be it native graphical apps, web apps, or bots. Inside JavaScript runtimes, TDLib can be used either as a Wasm module, or imported as a dynamic library to use its FFI.

TDLib focuses on getting the most out of the platform it runs on, while MTKruto focuses on getting the most out of the JavaScript runtime it runs on. MTKruto tends to be less-weighted than TDLib and use the features of the JavaScript runtime it runs on wherever possible, possibly making it more suitable for JavaScript runtimes.

It’s also worth mentioning that TDLib hasn’t been used in any of Telegram’s official web clients, and JavaScript client implementations were used instead.

Can I use Deno Deploy?

Telegram API clients are stateful. They required to maintain a TCP connection with Telegram, and need persistent memory. Just like any other client, this is also the fact for MTKruto.

Hence, for most use cases, it is not possible to run them on serverless platforms like Deno Deploy. Instead, you are required to use a VPS.

In some specific scenarios, for example, a client that updates a user’s status and disconnects, Deno Deploy can be used, since it supports all APIs required by MTKruto. Although, you are responsible yourself to implement a locking mechanism to not allow different instances of a client using the same authorization run at the same time. Otherwise, unexpected behaviors are to be expected.