The short answer
Rose is a free group manager with solid basics: CAPTCHA, anti-flood, anti-raid, blocklists and shared ban lists. Look for an alternative when the spam in your group is no longer something a word list can match: scams in pictures, lookalike letters, edited messages, copies of your admins. You can add a second bot without removing Rose.
Key facts
- Rose is free. Its FAQ says the costs are covered by paid custom instances and occasional collaborations.
- Rose's FAQ, dated May 2026, reports 24 million groups in total and 2 million active each month.
- Rose's blocklists match words and exact phrases you add, without regard to upper or lower case.
- Rose's anti-raid temporarily bans every account that joins while it is on. The defaults are six hours of protection and a one-hour ban.
- Rose's documentation, read on 13 October 2026, describes no reading of text inside pictures, no QR code reading and no AI review of messages.
- Two moderation bots can run in one group. Each acts only on what it detects.
What is Rose, and what does it do well?
Rose is a group management bot for Telegram. Its FAQ, dated May 2026, counts 24 million groups in total and 2 million active each month. It is free.
It covers the basics of running a group, all from commands in the chat:
- Joining. A CAPTCHA with four modes, from a single button to picking characters out of a picture. Anyone who does not solve it stays muted and can be removed after a time you set.
- Floods and raids. Anti-flood limits how many messages an account sends in a row. Anti-raid temporarily bans every account that joins while it is on, and it can switch itself on when a set number of accounts join within a minute.
- Content rules. Locks for kinds of content, and blocklists of words and phrases with an action for each.
- Shared bans. Federations let several groups share one ban list.
- Running the group. Notes, filters, welcome messages, warnings, purges, approvals for trusted members and a log channel.
If your trouble is crude spam, and you want notes and greetings in the same bot, Rose does the job.
Where does Rose stop?
This table is drawn from Rose's own documentation, read on 13 October 2026. "Not documented" means the documentation does not describe it. It does not prove the feature is absent.
| What the spam does | Rose, as documented | What catching it takes |
|---|---|---|
| Uses a word on your list | Blocklists match the word or the exact phrase | A word list is enough |
| Swaps letters for lookalikes from another alphabet | Not documented | Characters normalized before matching |
| Puts the scam in a picture or a QR code | Not documented | Reading the text and the code in the picture |
| Posts something harmless, then edits it | Not documented | Checking every edit again |
| Copies an admin's name and photo | Not documented | Comparing profiles against your admins |
| Builds a scam over a conversation, with no fixed words | Not documented | A reader that judges meaning, not words |
| Joins in a wave on the day of a real launch | Temporarily bans every joiner while anti-raid is on | A person deciding whether the wave is a raid |
The last row is a choice, not a fault. A temporary ban for everyone who joins during a raid is simple and it works. It also turns away real people who arrive on your busiest day. See what to do in a raid.
When should I keep Rose?
Keep it when its conveniences are part of how your group runs. Notes, custom greetings, warning ladders, purges and per-member approvals are things Rose does and Targa does not.
You do not have to choose. Rose stays for notes and greetings, and a second bot handles detection. To avoid asking new members twice, leave the join CAPTCHA on in one bot only.
What should an alternative do that Rose does not?
Five questions to ask of any bot you consider:
- Does it read pictures? Much scam text now arrives as an image, so that a word list never sees it. See scams in pictures and QR codes.
- Does it see through lookalike letters? "Аirdrop" with a Cyrillic А is a different word to a blocklist. See lookalike-character spam.
- Does it check edits? A message that passes at noon can become a scam at one.
- Does it notice a copy of your admin? See the fake admin scam.
- Does it say why? A bot that removes a member without a reason gives you nothing to check and nothing to tell the member.
How does Targa compare?
Targa is a security bot. It does less community management than Rose and more detection.
It has the same protection basics: a join CAPTCHA, anti-flood, anti-raid, blocklists, content locks and federations. On top of those, an AI reader checks every message in any language. It reads text and QR codes inside pictures, normalizes lookalike characters, checks messages again when they are edited, and compares names, photos and bot handles against your admins. Every action carries a reason you can read with /why, and every action can be undone in one tap.
Three limits, stated plainly:
- Targa is in private beta. Access is by request.
- Targa has no notes, custom greeting flows, warning ladders or purges. Keep Rose for those.
- The free plan has a monthly message limit, and protection pauses when it is reached. The plans explain it.
The full comparison lists every row for Targa, Rose and Combot.
How do I try a second bot without risk?
- Add it next to Rose. Do not remove anything.
- Start in shadow mode. Switch it on with /shadow on: Targa deletes nothing, bans nobody, and logs every action it would have taken, with the reason.
- Read the log for a week. Compare it with what Rose caught and what your admins removed by hand.
- Decide from your own group. Turn enforcement on, or remove the second bot. Either way nothing in your group changed while you were testing.
To see what your group shows to someone looking from outside, run the free group check.
Common questions
Is Rose bot free?
Yes. Rose's FAQ says it is kept free because spam is a problem for everyone. The costs are covered by custom instances, which are private paid versions of the bot, and by occasional collaborations. Rose is not open source.
Is Rose bot safe to add to a group?
Rose is one of the most widely used bots on Telegram and is run by a company named on its site. Like any moderation bot, it reads the messages in the groups it is added to and needs admin rights to act. Check that you add the real bot, by the username on its own site.
Can I run Rose and another anti-spam bot together?
Yes. Telegram lets a group have several admin bots. Give each one only the rights it needs, and turn off overlapping features on one of them, such as the join CAPTCHA, so new members are not asked twice.
What does Rose not do?
Its documentation describes no reading of text inside pictures or QR codes, no handling of lookalike characters, no AI review of messages and no web dashboard. That is a statement about what is documented on 13 October 2026, not proof that a feature is absent.
What is the best alternative to Rose bot?
It depends on what you are missing. If you want analytics and scheduled posts, look at a community tool. If scams get past your word lists, look at a bot built for detection, and test it in a mode that only logs before you let it act.
See what a scammer sees in your group
The free group check reads a group's public signals and shows where it is exposed. No account needed.