How to Make a Video Chat App in 2024: Features, Tech Stack and Development Cost

As sad as it is to admit, remote work is becoming a new trend. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of remote workers has continued to rise. For example, according to Statista's report as to changes in remote work trends in the United States, the number of remote workers working five days a week from home has grown from 17% to 44% since the 2020. Leveling the distance between employees requires quality communication and communication tools to establish a productive workflow.

To provide an uncut conversation experience on-the-go, startups and companies build video chat apps. Apps like Viber and WhatsApp were created by enthusiast entrepreneurs and now gain millions in revenue. Still, you need to define a set of features and understand a video chat app development budget. Not talking about hiring specialists who’d build the app.

In this article, we're going to outline features, steps, and tech stack needed to build a video chat app.

Before we tell you how to make a video calling app, it would be wise to learn the market you want to enter. The market for video conferencing applications is a tidbit for many entrepreneurs due to its high prospects. The pandemic has given an unprecedented leap in the development of this market. According to the Transparency Market Research analysts and their research of a video conferencing market, its size will reach $16 billion by the end of 2030. This is a clear indication that companies are investing in developing their products, and new video conferencing applications are emerging.

However, if the market size isn't a compelling argument for you to build your own video chat app, here's another fact. The number of downloads of the most popular applications is currently breaking through its peak. For example, downloads of the popular Zoom app reached 21.3 million in March 2020, up from a modest 2.1 million in January of the same year. The surge in demand is another reason why you need to jump on this trend-train with your own video conferencing solution.

To develop a video chat app you should know about such solutions’ kinds. Each type has its own purpose, and you must choose one of them. The main purpose of these apps is to stream a video from the user's front or back camera to others. Every app has it's target audience. It can be enterprises with their frequent meetings or general users looking for a simple way to communicate with friends and fight with boredom. You have to keep your target audience in mind to build a successful video chat app that satisfies user needs.

So, there are several types of video chat apps and user groups for whom they’re built for.

This type is normally used for meetings involving many participants (around 500 users). Conferencing video chat apps can be used for business, work, and e-learning. The main advantage is the support for dozens of users participating in a conference at the same time.

It’s impossible to develop a video chat app for conferences without a superb video and audio quality. Besides, the app should automatically adjust audio and video bitrate quality according to the user's internet connection speed. But they may lack some other features. Skype is a well-known example. It has a solid mobile app, but a rather weak desktop version. Additional features like reactions and statuses leave much to be desired.

We can name several popular conferencing solutions on the market to help you come up with ideas to build video chat app from scratch:

Zoom

Zoom is a popular solution for those who want many participants on a call. With an enterprise plan, it can support up to 500 users per conference. However, a recent popularity growth revealed some serious security issues. It turned out that Zoom doesn’t use end-to-end encryption. While this issue exists, it’s recommended not to exchange any sensitive information via Zoom. On top of that, a free subscription provides conferences no longer than 40 minutes, which may not be enough.

Skype

For many, Skype is the first application that comes to mind when it comes to video conferencing. For 18 years now, this application has allowed users to call each other and communicate via voice and video, and every year this functionality is only getting better. Skype supports up to 50 participants in a conference, as well as all the familiar functions like screen sharing, raising hands, and much more.

Google Meet

Google Meet is Google's video-conferencing application that is part of their infrastructure for other office applications. The application allows you to set up a video conference and provide your colleagues with a link to connect. Using this method, you can add up to 25 people to a video conference. In addition, this application has synchronization with the popular Google Calendar.

Some messengers have a video chat feature. Even though their main purpose is instant messaging, they still let users arrange conferences. Due to their availability, these applications have gained great popularity, and many use the video calling features to create small conferences. There are several famous video calling apps you should know about when create video call app:

WhatsApp

Even though WhatsApp is primarily a messenger, this application also can make video calls. The simplicity and friendliness of the interface made this application quite popular, and many users use the calling feature to keep in touch with their family and friends. However, WhatsApp has a limit of only 4 people per conference.

Facebook Messenger

This is another representative of instant messengers that is an addition to the popular social network Facebook and allows users to send messages to each other and make calls. Online calls have a fairly simple set of functions and are limited to 8 people in a video conference.

FaceTime

FaceTime is Apple's pride, and you can find it on any Apple device since FaceTime is pre-installed by default. Even though this application is not a pioneer in video calling, it was with it that the popularization of video calling for mobile users began. In addition, the conference can be attended by up to 32 people at the same time, which is a large enough number for a mobile application.

How to build a video calling app that fights boredom? The final type on our list answers this question. It lets users chat while playing games, watching movies or videos, and so on. We can name few popular representatives of this app type:

Houseparty

This is a simple conferencing application that allows users to play various simple games during video calls like Pictionary, Heads Up! and Apples to Apples, and many others. In addition, there is a screen recording feature that will allow you to capture your game and emotions on video.

Discord

Discord is a full-fledged application for gamers that allows, in addition to creating discussion channels, arrange video conferences, stream various games, and much more. This application has various convenient quality-of-life features that make this application indispensable for gamers. For example, you can track which games your friends are playing in real-time.

Rave

During a pandemic, many of us most likely miss going to the movies with friends. Rave aims to fill that void by providing thousands of free movies for users to watch, and beyond that, you can invite your friends to a video conference and watch a movie together.

For now, you know all the main types of solutions for video chatting which partly helps you answer how to create video chat app.

However, there may be a situation when you need to integrate a video chat into a ready-made app. For example, telehealth apps can’t survive without video chat. If that’s your case, it’s better to contact a software development company and decide how to integrate this feature.

Now, it's time to find out the major development steps that guarantee a successful product launch.

To create a video calling app, you’ll need a qualified software development company. You can hire an in-house team of developers or outsource the work to software vendors from other countries.

If you’re aiming at long-term cooperation, an in-house development team is your choice. When you work with your own team, you can get instant face-to-face communication and completely control the video chat app development process. However, this approach involves additional costs, such as office rent, hardware/software payments, etc. Moreover, you have to spend a lot of time recruiting. On top of that, in-house developers usually charge way more than outsourced teams, especially talking about North America.

On the other hand, you can cooperate with an outsourced software development team. Primality, this strategy is attractive because of its flexibility in terms of costs. For example, the average developer rate in Central Europe (the most popular outsourcing direction) is $50/hour, much cheaper than $150/hour in the USA. In addition, you get access to a vast amount of talents worldwide. This saves you time recruiting a team, so your project will be done faster. What's more, you will be able to access all advanced technologies. You may be intimidated by the complexity of communication, but all experienced outsourced developers solve this problem by making a joint schedule.

Once you find a video chat app development company, the team will proceed to the solution design stage. This stage aims to define the project's critical goal and business context, as well as the main scope of work, basic quality attributes, etc. The solution team typically includes a Business Analyst (BA), a Solution Architect (SA), and a Designer. Based on the phase results, the team provides you with an approximate estimate, calculates the time required to build a video chat app, and generates a proposal.

The Discovery phase allows for turning all project requirements into a detailed development plan. During this stage, the team clarifies all the previously voiced requirements, such as the platforms you want to cover, third-party service integrations, functionality, etc. Then, experts create a feature breakdown list, BPMN diagrams, UML diagrams, impact maps, flowcharts, etc., and a detailed estimate of your project. The discovery phase speeds up product development and ensures the highest app quality due to forming a clear roadmap for project implementation.

UI/UX design services come first when you create an app for video calls, as this factor significantly affects users. If you are targeting a broad audience, consider that your design should be minimalistic and intuitive. A user interface with certain features may suit a specific audience. However, if it has many buttons and menus, it will scare away most users. If you're creating a video calling app for users of all ages and technical levels, ensure it's user-friendly for everyone.

After defining all the project requirements, video chat app development begins. Guided by all the previously created documents, programmers make the software during two-week sprints, during which a particular part of the application is completed. In the case of video conferencing solutions, special attention is paid to the backend since server logic is a foundation for video chat app development. There are several ways to build the backend. You can create it from scratch or use various software-as-a-service (SaaS) solutions, like PubNub.

Video streaming protocol integration

Transmitting a live video/audio via the app is possible due to the WebRTC (Real-Time Communication) protocol. WebRTC protocol provides features, like peering, streaming, audio/video codecs for communication between users. In simple words the server exchanges some data between the clients that are willing to connect to each other. That’s how they can start a direct connection, that is independent of the server.

On top of that, WebRTC is a secure protocol to create a video call app. This derives from the fact that software companies are building healthcare HIPAA compliant apps applying this protocol.

Professional software providers also pay a lot of attention to quality assurance to ensure smooth operation of the video call app and its compliance with project requirements. Mistakes can result in poor audio/video timing, malfunctioning, or even leakage of personal data. To avoid this, QA engineers test every feature, regression, and stress testing.

To test the potential of your idea, it’s better to create a video call app MVP (Minimum Viable Product) first. A minimalistic set of features will help you understand what your product lacks and how to improve it. Let’s get through the basic features needed to develop a video chat app.

A chief ingredient in video chat app development since you can’t create a video call app without calls. Apart from video calls, the app should have voice calls. Thus, users will be able to keep in touch with people abroad. Foreign calls are expensive in terms of internet traffic, so in-app voice calls are a cheaper alternative, and you should think about it when considering how to create video call app.

Obviously, the video should be transmitted in at least HD quality, and audio should be loud and clear. Of course, it’s not entirely in your hands, and quality depends on the bandwidth. Still, your responsibility is to optimize the real-time connection as best as possible when you decide on how to build a video calling app and bring the decisions into life.

One-to-one calls are good but not enough to create a video call app. Your users may want to organize group conferences, so let them do it. Depending on your audience, decide how many users per call should be supported.

If you’re aiming at businesses, support no less than 50 users. If your app is for everyday conversations with friends, 10 people per call will be enough. Moreover, when you decide how to build video call app, develop some key features for conference hosts, like muting/unmuting users, inviting, and banning. But you have to mind an important thing. The more users you want to be in the conference the harder it will be to build a logic for the app. Thus, the cost of app development will increase.

Sometimes, it’s not an option that should be considered as a reply to the "how to develop video calling app" question for making a call. The user may be in an area with poor coverage or simply on a meeting. Text chat comes in handy here. To create a video call app with a text chat, you can use Twilio. This SDK contains primary instances needed for a chat, like users and messages. It’s a cross-platform SDK, so it allows engineers to reduce development time.

This is the type of encryption where devices of recipient and sender are a final transfer point. The message is encrypted on the sender’s device and decrypted only on the recipient’s device. Nobody can read this message when it’s being sent. So, when you think out how to develop a video calling app and prepare functionality list, add this feature to ensure that all conversations will be confidential.

Protocols like AES-256 and HMAC-SHA256 will help you to make a video chat app secure. They split the data into 256 bits long blocks. Then these blocks are encrypted, transmitted to the destination point, and decrypted on the side of the recipient.

A simple feature you shouldn’t neglect during video call app development. The app will automatically notify users about new messages in the chat, missed calls, keep them informed about new updates, and more. Third-party tools like Firebase Cloud Messaging or Apple Push Notification service will help you improve user engagement with minimum efforts.

The registration may be optional for users, and you should think it out when finding out how to build video chat app. For example, Zoom doesn’t require you to register. You may write your name right before joining the conference. However, it’ll be convenient for occasional users only.

Repeated name requests will irritate constant users. That's why it’s obligatory to develop a registration feature for engaging user experience. Also, registered users are more likely to enter your app again. Take care about logging in with third parties. Facebook Login and Google Sign-In will help you to implement this feature when you make a video call app.

It’s a vital feature you need to implement to create app with video chat successfully. Registered users need to manage their personal data. Usually, it’ll be names, e-mails, passwords, and so on for video call app development. If your solution offers paid subscription plans, you have to take care of payment details. Popular app market platforms won’t let you use payment methods of your choice. Thus you have to integrate in-app purchase tools so that customers will pay with credit cards via the platform's payment system.

Obviously, you can’t build a video calling app without a contact list. There’s a couple of components that form a contact list. The first one is the search engine. Users should be able to find other people in the vastness of your app. It would be great if they could search both by nickname and real name.

Another component is integration with the user's phonebook. You can fill a contact list automatically by searching similar phone numbers in your system. However, make sure to ask permission to access the phonebook before using the numbers. Google Contacts API is the easiest way to import existing contacts into your app.

Features listed above are totally necessary to build a video calling app but aren’t enough to build a product that stands out. Features covered in this section are the best bet for any video chat app.

This feature is a must-have for any online conferencing app. It’s used to illustrate the contents of your screen without irritating anyone. When you decide on how to develop video chat app, consider that screen sharing is useful for tutorials, streaming games, or even watching movies together. It can be used both in business conferencing apps and in apps for everyday conversation. Screen sharing can be implemented into your app with the help of the WebRTC protocol.

It’s vital to add this feature when you build a video calling app. Sometimes background noise is ruining the whole conversation. Someone watches TV loudly, or kids are playing in the backyard. Noise cancellation may come in handy in this case. With the help of deep learning algorithms, engineers can separate a user's voice from the background and suppress the background sounds with white noise.

So, how to make your own video calling app and integrate this approach? Keep in mind, it's complicated and requires a lot of development time. But no need to worry, there are some turn-key solutions on the market. For example, Krisp, an AI that helps you to create a video call app with noise cancellation. It can be integrated into any conversational app on any platform. It cancels the noise on both sides of the conversation. A lot of famous apps trust this solution. For example, Discord recently integrated Krisp into their app.

How to create a video chat app that is personalized for users? Let them create custom emojis and stickers. Sometimes default in-app stickers may seem boring, and users take matters in their own hands. It’s a common practice among messengers and chatting apps. Users often have their local jokes, and they want to move them into chats. So, a custom sticker pack is a great chance to share their sense of humor with others, and you should implement it while thinking out how to create an app for video calling and what additional features to integrate.

What instruments can help you integrate advanced features to your app? Let's revise it below.

So we looked at how to make a video calling app and listed all the features you can add to your video-conferencing application. It's time to calculate the approximate cost of developing this type of application.

This estimate is APPROXIMATE and includes DEVELOPMENT EXPENSES ONLY. To create app with video chat, you will also need a team of designers, QA engineers, PMs, and other specialists who form the backbone of the development team. Their video chat app development services are priced separately and are NOT INCLUDED in this estimate. Besides that, this estimate is for SINGLE PLATFORM ONLY.

How to make a video calling app? You have to decide on the tools you will be using during the development. There's a vast range of technologies used in mobile app development, but I’ve tried to outline the most important ones that are used to create a video chat app.

Remember: this tech stack is APPROXIMATE and depends on the features you need. It’s always better to discuss the tools with an experienced media software development company.

Programming languages

To develop an application for different platforms, you need your own programming languages. For example, to build a video calling app for iOS, you should use Swift since it is the only language for creating applications for iOS (not counting Objective-C). On the other hand, for development for Android or Web, it is best to use the two most popular languages on this platform: Kotlin and Java. You can also use there Flutter software development toolkit which is currently supported by both Android and iOS.

Frameworks

Creating a video chat app cannot be done without frameworks. So Spark and Node.js are ideal choices for developing video conferencing applications. Spark is a handy framework for building Java web applications, while Node.js is perfect for creating video conferencing applications, as it allows you to send data in small chunks and increase performance.

Databases

To create a video call app database where various data will be entered, such as usernames, their accounts, and other things, it is worth using time-tested tools like MySQL and Oracle.

Cloud platforms

If you want to host the power of your video conferencing application in the cloud, two of the most popular tools on the market are ideal: Amazon EC2 and Amazon S3.

Streaming protocols

Processing, buffering, and transmission of video requires implementing various protocols that allow you to broadcast the picture in real-time when you develop video chat app. For example, you can use the free WebRTC protocol, connect it with the RTP traffic transfer protocol, and add the RTMP webcam video transfer protocol.

Encryption protocols

To ensure protection from broadcast interception, the data that is transmitted must be well encrypted. To do this, developers use encryption protocols such as the standard AES-256 and the HMAC-SHA256 data integrity check algorithm.

API & SDK

How to make a video calling application and facilitate the development flow? With this purpose, you can also use ready-made tools. In order to create a video call app you can use the famous Twilio API. This tool provides out-of-the-box technologies and enables web services to leverage existing web programming languages and skills to create voice and video calling applications.

SaaS solutions

This category includes additional tools that help improve the overall functionality and quality of the video-conferencing application. For example, Krisp is an AI-powered app that removes background noise and echoes from meetings. PubNub allows you to create a real-time chat for your video conference, while OpenTokRTC is a tool for deploying an application to a server running on the WebRTC protocol.

One of the most important questions — how to make a video calling app that earns money? Investors love products that already generate income, while you’ll need funds to continue with product development.

There are six main ways to create your own video call app earning money. Let’s go through all of them.

• In-app purchases. By providing basic features of your app for free, you can sell access to premium content and additional features.
• In-app payment. Enabling your app for users to make Person-to-Person (P2P) transfers or pay for third-party services allows you to get revenue by charging a fee for each transaction.
• Chatbot integration. Reap revenue by simplifying the process of providing recommendations and enhancing conversions or Click Through Rate (CTR).
• Subscriptions. A great way to monetize the app is to offer users weekly, monthly, or yearly subscriptions. You can provide the basic features for free but give access to the premium functionality only to your subscription buyers.
• Pay-per-download. You can make your app pay-per-download to make a profit for each download from the store.
• Pay-per-conversation. Companies like Zoom and Skype use this model. For some fees, users can add more participants to the conference, extend the call duration, or gain access to premium features like screen-sharing.

You can also combine several monetization models to make your video chat app more profitable or use any other strategy that seems appropriate to you.

When your business requires complicated software solutions, you can apply to a software development vendor enough skilled in how to develop a video chat app, as well as other media solutions. The vendor's specialists will guide you through the development flow from the raw concept to a full-fledged product delivery.

Cleveroad is the very same vendor. It's an experienced end-to-end team developing custom software for businesses of various sizes. Our solutions built boost the performance of our clients' businesses and help them increase their outcomes.

Our software development team has considerable experience with streaming applications.

We’ve recently updated Blockbuster — VOD streaming solution.

Blockbuster was an iconic video and gaming rental company in the US. Some time later, a top-tier Danish provider purchased it's brand rights and launched a streaming platform for Nordic countries. We were updating the mobile version of Blockbuster on both platforms.

To develop video call app, we used the following technologies:

• Mobile/Tablet: Kotlin for Android and Swift for iOS development

• Authorization: Facebook Login

• TV streaming: Google Cast SDK

• Video analytics: Youbora

• Libraries for Amazon Web Services: Apollo, CloudFront, Lambda, Elastic Beanstalk, GraphQL, AWSAppSync

We can also boost your business creating such an application which will fully fit your set aims. You should only contact us and start a cooperation. Don't hesitate to do it, guiding your business to new heights!