Facebook and Whatsapp provide ample communication between members of neighbourhood and security groups: You can send personal messages, follow posts and updates and even sell things. But more and more people are jumping ship as endless unrelated notifications flood their already flooded lives (especially on Whatsapp groups where conversations that have nothing to do with you only leave you 45 notifications deep.)

Now, there’s a great alternative that more and more people in South Africa are turning to.

With more than 1 100 live neighbourhoods across South Africa, OurHood is experiencing a 35% growth in monthly signups for certain neighbourhoods. After all, the security over who has access to the information on groups on Facebook is becoming more and more questionable while OurHood demands a secure sign up by validating your residency.

The peeps over at OurHood made this handy infographic breaking down the reasons why OurHood is different to platforms such as Whatsapp or Facebook and the other ways you can use it: