How To Create a Chat Application Like WhatsApp?

Imagine one day you wake up with an excellent idea of starting up a successful social media. You wish to give the world the next Twitter and make money doing it. For sure you’ll be fully involved in the process of chat app development and its promotion. Here is some information on how to make an app like WhatsApp both you’d like to create a chat app for iOS or Android.

Overview

WhatsApp Messenger is a cross-platform, encrypted instant messaging application for smartphones. Text messages, documents, images, video, user locations and audio messages are sent through the Internet to other users using standard cellular mobile numbers.
Launched five years ago, the app has demonstrated a tremendous growth. As of February 2016, WhatsApp’s user base amounts to one billion, making it the most popular messaging application. According to the Financial Times, “Whatsapp has done to SMS on mobile phones what Skype did to international calling on landlines.”
In 2014, California-based WhatsApp Inc. was acquired by Facebook Inc. for approximately US$19.3 billion.

Features

WhatsApp has many exciting features which are listed below:

Texting

Sending messages with WhatsApp is easy, reliable and (what is most important) free, as compared with standard SMS cost.

WhatsApp Calling

You can talk to your friends and family for free, especially if you are abroad. WhatsApp Calling uses the Internet connection to your smartphone, so you don’t need to think about expensive cell calling rates.

Group Chat

Be in touch with your family members or coworkers. It is possible to share messages, photos, and videos with up to 256 people at once within your group. Choose a name for your group and customize the service for your needs.

WhatsApp on Web and Desktop

WhatsApp is available on the web and desktop, so you can seamlessly synchronize all of your chats to your computer. This feature allows you to chat on whatever device is the most convenient at the moment.

Photos & Videos

You can share important photos and videos on WhatsApp all the time. It’s worth to mention that with WhatsApp, photos and videos are quickly sent even if you’re on a slow Internet connection.

Voice Messages

It is also possible to record and send a Voice Message with just one tap.

End-To-End Encryption

The latest versions have end-to-end encryption to secure messages and calls.

Documents Sharing

You can also send documents, spreadsheets, slideshows, PDFs, and more, without excessive usage of the e-mail box or download a special file sharing app.

WhatsApp Alternatives

BBM

It’s curious that BlackBerry’s Messenger is the grandfather of the phone instant messaging apps. From the very beginning, it was only available for BlackBerry’s smartphones, allowing secure instant messages to be sent between BlackBerry users. In December 2013 BlackBerry announced about 40 million users of its iPhone and Android apps. Now they do not plan to bring BBM to Windows Phone or other platforms.

Line

The biggest competitor of WhatsApp, Line is an instant messaging app for sending text messages, images, video & audio, as well as making internet phone calls or video conferences. Line is available for almost every computer and mobile platform and has 350 million users all over the world.

Kik Messenger

Kik Messenger is another messaging app alternative. It allows sending texts, images and voice messages over a smartphone’s data connection avoiding mobile operator expenses. It also makes it possible for the users to browse content and share it directly with their friends. After its release in 2010 Kik now has 100m users globally.

Skype

Skype is known first of all for voice and video calling, but it also provides some important instant messaging functions. Available for Android, the iPhone, Windows Phone and BlackBerry, as well as for desktops, home phones, TVs and games consoles. It is possible to send text messages, images, videos, voice messages and group messages as well.

Viber

Having started out as a direct Skype competitor for free voice calling Viber has expanded into a cross-platform messaging client. Viber is available for the top platforms such as iPhone, Android, BlackBerry and Windows Phone, Bada and Symbian and Series 40, plus the desktop, which has made it one of the most widely available mobile chat apps. All Viber users can send text messages, pictures, and video. Unfortunately, voice calling and some other features are limited to the iPhone, Android, and Windows Phone.

WeChat

WeChat (former name Wēixìn) was created by a China-based Tencent Holdings. Though it doesn’t have the same level of popularity as, for example, Viber or WhatsApp, that doesn’t mean it lacks in features. Here you can find stickers, video chats, free calls between users, group chats, and broadcast messages. With its attractive design the company pushes out updates regularly. And the most important thing is that it’s free! Being popular in China, the number of WeChat’s users is growing outside it too.

The others

There are a lot of other messaging apps out there, including Tango and TextFree, as well as iMessage, integrated into Apple’s devices. Facebook also has two other messaging apps: Facebook Messenger and Instagram which allows sharing photos publicly or privately.

Here are some 2015 statistics of the most used mobile messaging apps provided by Statista, which shows millions of monthly active users.

Development

There are certain procedures through which the real-time chat app works. They are as follows:

1. User Registration: To use the app, users have to directly register themselves through instant chat app by their country code and mobile number.
2. User Profile: Users find it great to create their profile entering some personal details and image.
3. User Status: There should be an option of uploading a new status on User Profile, seen by other users as well.
4. Add my Favorites: Just like in WhatsApp, there should be an option of adding friends.
5. Search Users: The app should have an option of searching other people.
6. Sharing Options: It would be exciting if the new chat app could provide sharing of contacts location and voice notes on top of chatting, sending photos and videos.
7. Group Chat: There should also be such an option as creating a group chat for simultaneous communicating with many people. This option should allow choosing chat members and sharing media.
8. Voice Calling: Another useful option is the embedded feature of voice calling like other mobile chat apps, e.g. WeChat or Viber.
9. Video Calling: The new instant messaging app shall provide video calls as well.
10. Online Presence: Sometimes users are interested in seeing other online users and their last online presence in date and time format.

The following steps are most of the time obligatory for messaging app development:

• Demo of Application
• Creating Structure of Application
• Creating Variables Package
• Interfaces
• Information Storage Manipulation
• Sockets
• Setting up a Web Server
• Providing Authentication to User
• Processing Messages
• Configuring the App
• Exercise Files

How much does it cost to build an app like WhatsApp?

If you are thinking of building a mobile chat app, it would be better to start with a small application having some essential features. A possible list of such features includes:

• Event management and calendar synchronization;
• VoIP phone calls;
• Video chats;
• Group calls (including group video calls);
• Encrypted chats;
• Self-destructing messages;
• Geolocation integration;
• Cloud services sync (for the sent user files storage);
• Support for various data formats (text, video, audio, emoticons, pictures, photographs, stickers, etc.)

The process of building a mobile chat app includes such main steps as Wireframes + Design, Messenger app + Back-end. Making rough estimation it’ll take around 1400 hours by a team of chat app developers. The chat app development cost will start from 35,000USD depending on each case, a set of features, etc.

If you are interested in how to develop a mobile chat app, you should look for a company who have experience with development of the instant messaging app for iOS and Android.

Once you have made your decision, you are always welcome to contact us for getting the quote for iOS or Android chat app development.

Conclusion

There’s never going to be one universal app which fits everyone’s needs. But with a set of options available one can even use two different apps, for example, WhatsApp for personal use and Skype for work. You will need to look at your WhatsApp clone and see how you can get people to use it over the more established players, once you have enough people who are hooked on your app. There is still a demand for some excellent services which can be converted in a financially successful app for your business.