If you're searching for a way to back up everything posted in a Telegram group or channel, you've probably found four kinds of answers: Telegram's own export tool, a handful of open-source bots you have to run yourself, hosted export bots, and no-code CRMs like ours. Each solves a different problem. Here's how they actually compare, honestly - including where KSLAB isn't the best fit.
Before comparing tools, it helps to separate two very different needs. A one-time export gives you a snapshot of everything posted up to today - useful once, but it goes stale the moment someone posts again. A continuous archive keeps working: new photos, videos, and files get saved automatically as they're posted, so you never have to remember to run anything.
Most of the tools below are strong at one of these and weak at the other. Match the tool to which one you actually need.
Telegram Desktop can export an entire chat - messages, photos, videos, voice notes - to your computer. It's free, it's official, and for a private conversation you want to keep once, it's the simplest option there is.
The catch: it's manual and local. You have to open the app and run the export again every time you want an update, the output is a folder of files with no search or web view, and it only works for chats you're already in on that device. For an active group where new media shows up every day, it turns into a recurring chore rather than a backup.
Open-source projects on GitHub take a different approach: you run the bot yourself, usually on your own server, and it saves media as it arrives - some also let you trigger a full export into an archive file on demand. Because they're open source, you can see exactly what they do with your data, and there's no subscription.
The tradeoff is that "you run it yourself" is doing a lot of work in that sentence. You need a server that stays online, comfort with Python or Docker, your own storage and backup-of-the-backup plan, and you're the one who fixes it when a Telegram API change breaks something. For a technical admin who wants full control, that's a fair price. For a community manager who just wants the media saved, it's a second job.
A newer category sits between the two: hosted bots you add to a chat that export or continuously mirror it for you, without needing your own server. This removes the hosting burden of the DIY option while staying closer to a "backup" framing - the goal is a copy of your chat, not a browsable library.
Where these tools focus on chat export completeness (getting everything out, including plain messages), KSLAB focuses specifically on media - the photos, videos, and documents - and turns them into a library you browse and manage, not a file dump you have to sort through afterward.
KSLAB takes the "continuous archive" half of the problem and builds a product around it: connect a bot from BotFather, add it to your group or channel, and it saves every photo, video, and document as it's posted - no server, no code. Everything lands in a web media library where you can preview, download, or delete items, and add storage as the archive grows.
It's deliberately not trying to be a full chat exporter - text messages and reactions aren't the focus, media is. If what you actually want is every plain-text message preserved too, a chat-export tool is the better fit. If what you want is "never lose the photos and videos people post," with a browsable library instead of a folder, that's the gap KSLAB is built for.
If you're not sure yet, start from the need: a one-time save → Telegram's own export. Full control and you're comfortable maintaining a server → a self-hosted bot. An ongoing, no-code media library you can browse from anywhere → that's what we built KSLAB for.
| Tool type | Setup | Ongoing / automatic | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Telegram export | None (built-in) | No - manual, one-time | A single chat, saved once |
| Self-hosted bots (GitHub) | Server + code required | Yes, if you maintain it | Developers who want full control |
| Hosted export bots | Add bot, no server | Depends on the tool | Full chat / message backup |
| KSLAB Bot CRM | Add bot, no server | Yes, automatic | Media library for groups and channels |
Yes, using Telegram's own export feature in Telegram Desktop - but it's a one-time, manual snapshot, not an ongoing backup. For continuous archiving you need a bot in the chat, whether self-hosted or hosted.
Most bot-based tools, including KSLAB, work for both - a channel just needs the bot added as an admin so it can read posts, while a group only needs the bot as a member.
Only give a bot the permissions it needs, and check what happens to your data - whether it's stored by the provider, exported to you, or both. Never share your personal Telegram login or 2FA code with any bot or script; a legitimate bot only ever needs a BotFather token.
On KSLAB you can add storage per GB as your archive grows, and higher plans raise the maximum single-file size you can download - useful if you're archiving longer videos.