With the "Facebook Lite" app, Facebook has released a simplified version of the Facebook app. Since the release, Facebook Lite has become more and more extensive, but there are still some differences to the large Facebook app. In this article, we will show you who the new app is aimed at and where exactly the differences between the two Facebook variants lie.
What is Facebook Lite?
The "Facebook Lite" app was originally published in 2015 as a Facebook variant for developing and emerging countries. So that people with older smartphones can also use Facebook, the app's background processes are significantly simplified, it saves storage space and conserves data volume.
The app has also been available in Germany since 2018 and is particularly interesting for people with older smartphones and low data tariffs. So far, however, the app has only been released for Android.
You can download Facebook Lite from Heise Download.
The group page (left) and the profile page (right) in the Facebook Lite app. So that Facebook Lite also runs on older devices, the app is slower and has fewer features. In the following section, we will show you exactly the differences between the two Facebook variants..
Differences between Facebook Lite and Facebook app
Reduced consumption
The great advantage of Facebook Lite is the reduced memory, data volume and battery consumption. As a result, the app is just a few MB in size and saves your data plan and battery when using it. But that is also the reason for the main disadvantage of the app: It is also significantly slower and has more loading times than the normal Facebook app.
Design
When using the app, you will probably quickly notice differences in design compared to the real Facebook app. The app was designed a bit simpler from the start and was only gradually brought closer to the structure of the normal Facebook app with updates. There are still minor differences in the details, for example the menu bar on the start page contains other elements:
Comparison between the homepage in Facebook Lite (left) and Facebook (right). Missing functions However,
some functions are not only to be found in a different location, but not at all in the app. Above all, this includes the features that require a lot of performance. Among other things, filters for the camera, photos in good quality and GIFs are not available in the status update..
Messenger Lite
As with the real Facebook app, there is no messenger integrated into the Facebook Lite app. In order to be able to access the messaging service on older devices, Facebook also offers a simplified lite version of the Facebook Messenger for Android devices.