Telegram has never been shy about borrowing good ideas and putting its own spin on them. Over the years, we’ve seen it introduce Stories, Channels, Topics, and Business accounts. Now, the messaging platform is testing another major addition that feels familiar but still uniquely Telegram.

The latest Telegram beta for Android (version 12.9) introduces Communities, a feature designed to organize multiple related group chats under a single umbrella.

From what has surfaced in the beta, Communities aren’t simply larger groups. Instead, they act as a home for several independent chats centered around the same topic, project, or organization. Think of a university club with separate chats for announcements, events, and members, or a gaming community with dedicated chats for different games.

Unlike traditional Telegram groups, each chat remains completely independent. Joining one chat doesn’t automatically add you to the others, but Telegram recognizes you as part of the wider community once you’re in any linked chat.

What immediately stood out to me is how much this resembles Discord’s server structure. Community members can browse all visible chats and join whichever ones interest them, while hidden chats remain accessible only through direct invitations. It’s a cleaner way to organize conversations without cluttering everyone’s chat list.

Telegram is also giving administrators plenty of control. Community owners can set a dedicated name and profile picture, decide whether members can freely add their own groups, or require admin approval before new chats become part of the community.

Another clever touch is the optional “Show as One Chat” toggle. Normally, every group continues to appear separately in your chat list. But if admins enable this option, Telegram visually combines all community chats into a single entry. It feels somewhat similar to Telegram Forums, except each topic is actually a standalone chat that members can join independently.

If a group belongs to a community, that relationship also appears on the chat’s profile page, making it easy for members to discover other related conversations without leaving Telegram.

For now, Communities are still limited. Only group chats can be added, although app strings suggest support for channels may eventually arrive. Whether Telegram follows through on that remains to be seen.

The feature is currently available only on Telegram’s test server, meaning regular users can’t create communities just yet. Still, it’s an interesting glimpse at where Telegram is headed and if it rolls out publicly, it could become one of the app’s biggest organizational upgrades in years.