Maybe encryption-wise but function-wise it is miles ahead of both WA and signal. There are bots, stickers, live preview of gifs and (YouTube) movies, an audio player built in, an API, real desktop clients (yes I understand that breaks e2e encryption but it's nice when my phone battery is dead I can still send people messages), channels, cloud storage. Still it feels faster than WA. WA is a (very) local minimum and moves very slowly, we can do much better as users.