Build vs Buy — How to Build a Chat Application in Android,iOS & Web?

Gowtham
Product Coalition
Published in
5 min readApr 28, 2019

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develop mobile real time chat app

“At least 97% of the mobile users text regularly ”

According to Axway, Marketing Charts, “70% of smartphone owners say that messaging is one of the top 5 uses of their devices. That’s 13% higher than any other smartphone feature.”

Business enterprises use Chat apps as the most preferred mode of communication when compared to other media. Building an effective communication channel in any workforce enhances the business to grow to its full potential as it provides all the functionalities in an easy and effective way. Building a chat app also helps in tremendous conversion rates where it has proven that text conversions are always on top hand when compared to email conversions by 295%.

Significant Features of MirrorFly which makes it stand apart from of its counterparts

Mirrorfly is a real-time chat solution that is successfully implemented by embedding chat API into any mobile and web application. Also, it helps in creating a more personalized chat app by providing 100% customizable options.

  • High-End Technologies — Building a solution with the top-notch technology gives a reliable and scalable end result. Mirrorfly always builds a chat app with niche technologies like XMPP, ERLANG, S3, and Cassandra.
  • WebRTC Signalling — Peer to peer communication has made possible with the help of WebRTC integration into any chat app in a seamless way. Thus, integrating WebRTC helps to build a voice and video calling messaging app instantly.
  • Unlimited Voice Call API — Create a chat app for mobile with unlimited calls like never before. Unlike pay per usage concept, Mirrorfly’s voice call API provides users with unlimited calling options.
  • Built on a Robust Secured Platform — All the chats communications are protected with a strong inbuilt End-to-End Encryption that’s on par with AES standards where it prevents malicious activities from hackers and other potential threats.
  • Cross-Platform — Creating a chat application that is compatible with various devices is essential to reach out to a large audience. Fly supports multiple-platform where Android users, iOS users, and web application users all can get benefitted from these services.
  • Effective Team Collaboration through Various Chats Model: Whether you need a private one-one chat with your Team Lead or a Group Chat for regular work updates or Voice and Video Chat for an interactive chat session, Mirrorfly has it all.

Build iOS Chat App from Scratch Like a Pro

build chat app for ios, android & web

Build an in-app chat messaging in iOS using powerful front-end and back-end technology plays a vital role in providing hassle-free user experience. Here are some of the best tools and technologies that are used to build an effective iOS chat app.

  • Documentation Tool — Jazzy is basically a code tool which is used for documentation while creating an iOS chat app from the beginning.
  • Objective C — Mirrorfly uses objective C and Swift as the main scripting language while developing a chat app due to its simplified UI design structure and easy readability of the codes.
  • Realm Database Storage — Easily integrate your iOS projects through realm database which is an open-source database that supports cross-platform and specifically designed to use for the mobile applications. Mirrorfly is built on this Realm database which provides an efficient workflow while creating a chat app for iOS.
  • UserDefault — The iOS development team has come up with an easy approach when it comes to saving and reading the message effortlessly by implementing UserDefault into their iOS chat apps. It can also be customized according to the user’s behavior.
  • Robust Backend Database system — Two strong relational database management system, namely MySQL and PostgreSQL offer additional security and performance for building a strong backend database.
  • Amazon Web Services — Mirrorfly uses effective web hosting services, AWS that contains a number of impeccable features in a secure environment.

End-to-End Development of an Android app

end to end instant messaging app technology

Just like the iOS app development, to build a chat app in Android a standard set of frontend and backend technologies are used to build a robust model that is highly scalable and reliable across multiple-platforms.

  • Mirrorfly uses Erlang and PHP as the programming language which gives a good response rate with low latency. Also, they use the SharedPreferences as the chat platform while creating an Android chat app which will be useful during any server downtime of the Android application. These SharedPreferences quickly retrieves the stored information whenever required.
  • XMPP protocol effectively creates an android chat app that is used to exchange information between the client and the server effortlessly.

How a Web Chat Application Build From Development to Deployment

web chat application development

In order to build an excellent messaging application for web go for javascript. Mirrorfly mindfully uses this technology where Node.js has a number of advantages over the other technologies. When it comes to creating a web-based chat application Node.js is your best bet which uses a unique technique known as “long-polling”. Long-polling is best suited for a real-time chat where you can write an application that instantly sends any updates to the users in real-time which maintains a reliable and consistent connection back to the server. Thus for creating web chat applications, MirrorFly implements Node.JS and Strothe JS in a seamless way.

Conclusion

Building a chat app either in iOS or Android or for your web application can be done effectively with the right resources and opting the right front-end and back-end technology. This is crucial to provide the user with an excellent result. MirrorFly provides an end-to-end solution for creating a chat app from scratch until the deployment with the appropriate support system and resources.

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