“Some technologies take decades for mainstream adaptation, says Hendrith Vanson.” But, it’s the video conferencing applications that did their magic by reaching to extents in the shortest time.“
Today where everything has been digitalized – the sharp demand for web & android video conference apps is something being set in stone.
According to studies, nearly 70% of the global workforce is likely to be virtualized by 2025, wherein most of the collaborative features will be from video conference applications.
As a result, the businesses are doing a makeover with their appearance involving strategies and technical tools to collaborate at each level. In this article, I am going to talk about these fundamental steps that are required to build a video conferencing app.
So, let’s make a start & get to know in detail!
Table of Contents
Explore The Steps To Build A Video Conferencing App
Now, let’s have some discussion on the logical part that must be considered to create a conference app for your business. This is based on elaborating the features and requirements identified in the pre-stage phase.
The three common strategies for building a video conferencing application are:
- Communication Platform as a Service (CPaaS)
- Branded Software Development
- Prebuilt Solutions
The last strategy, namely pre built solutions, is the most recommended strategy to add video conferencing to your website or mobile apps.
How to Build a Video Conferencing App in 7 Simple Steps?
Step 1: Study Your End-User & Research The Market
When engaging in a video conferencing app development for enterprises, this initial step will identify the type of users on your video conferencing app. Such insight can be drawn from a survey which expects more ‘visual expressions’ on the app by including more filters, stickers and emojis.
The design process tends towards digital product security and will be a value addition for the end user. Privacy is a significant factor and will be based on cyber security, supportive security features and encryption for quality excellence. Additionally, learn what type of monetization strategies users prefer and try to include pay-as-you-go pricing, freemium plans, or one-time license fee.
Step 2: Determine The Key Features Of Your App
The typical user experience is what defines this feature. Let’s have a look at some of the core features that are needed for a video conferencing app development,
- 1-to-1 & Group Video Calls: Helps users to connect with others via a single chat or group video call.
- Screen Sharing: Renders sharing of the screen on an ongoing video or audio call.
- File & Image Sharing: Makes the exchange of files, media, and other documents seamlessly easy through the chat app.
- Push Notifications: Notifies users of any incoming or missed calls in the chat platform.
- Language Translation: User’s messages can be translated into over 100+ languages in real-time.
- Audio/Video Muting: Allows users to disable or mute the audio or video on an ongoing audio or video chat.
- Call Logs: Get a detailed history of missed, made, and received calls on the video conferencing app.
- Call Analytics: Admins get hold of the key metrics that display user interaction within the chat app.
- Status Indicators: Indicators whether the person you are calling is available at the moment or offline.
- Search History: Allows users to search for the calls made for future communications.
- Security Protocols: All chats to and fro from the voice chat application must be encrypted using E2E and security protocols like AES-256 , SSL, TLS and more.
Step 3: Pick The Right Tech Stack & Platforms
Having got a fair insight on what features to include in a web or mobile chat application, it is time to highlight the platforms and technology stack. If you are using a home-grown video calling SDK solution, these parameters would have been easily sorted out.
Platforms: Make sure to build a video conferencing app that works well on all platforms, browsers, and devices. That is to adhere to multi-platform compatibility rules.
Programming Languages: To create online conference apps for native mobile platforms like iOS and Android, Swift, Objective C, Java, and Kotlin come to aid.
Recommended Read: Best Programming Languages For App Development in 2023!
React Native and Flutter work well to build cross-platform networks and can be wise choices for basic video-calling app development.
However, for web video conferencing, use JavaScript, HTML5, Node.js, and Spark.
WebRTC
It is a technology that supports real-time communication over desktop and mobile systems using a variety of APIs, and without the need for plugins.
- RTCPeerConnection
- RTCDataChannel
- MediaStream
Step 4: Ensure Security Of The Application
As a skilled developer, you must ensure that the voice chat application you are building is safe to withstand any security breaches. And to achieve this, the best practice is to include E2E encryptions, 256-bit TLS protocols, or simply use a voice chat SDK.
Additionally, you can include mechanisms like 2FA, OTP reception, and a lot more.
Step 5: Make UI/UX Design “Innovative & Interactive Part”
The UI (User Interface) refers to the fonts, styles, colors, and other visual elements that make the app look prettier and smarter.
Whereas, UX (User Experience) defines parameters that help users to interact with the app, like navigation content, CTA buttons, layouts, and a lot more.
Step 6: Testing For Bugs & Launching
In the final step, the code is tested for issues or bugs. These are resolved and ‘fixed’ in the testing stage. Overall, here the ‘clean’ final software product is user satisfaction, that’s apart from performance similar to peer apps in the segment.
When doing a testing, make sure to do the below testing types:
- GUI testing
- Functional testing
- Stress testing
- Performance testing
Step 7: Promoting The Video Conferencing App
Always see to it that you first promote your video conferencing app before making it live. You can do this, in the following ways:
– Creating a landing page and interlinking pages wherever applicable.
– Advertising on social media networks and creating a stellar copy for app stores.
– Reach out to influencers for blog promotional activities.
That’s the end of the steps to build your online conference app from start to finish. However, you might realize that there are cons associated with this approach being it to be expensive, time-consuming, requires skilled people, and per platform optimization.
The best technique to alleviate the problems of the above said would be to use a third-party voice calling SDK solution.
Recommended Reading
Development Strategy with Third-Party APIs
The prebuilt solution for web video calling includes software that delivers video conferencing services. A full-fledged application with custom design that follows a turn-key basis is better cost-wise, highly scalable, and quicker than building an app from scratch!
1. MirrorFly – “All-in-One Real-Time Solution”
MirrorFly is the most developer-friendly video chat SDK provider that offers Saas and self-hosted solutions to build exceptional video calling capabilities across the web and mobile apps. Our APIs are designed to be highly compatible with different platforms and deliver low-latent calling experiences to users.
Let us see some of the highlights:
MirrorFly – SaaS-based video chat SDKs
This solution is popularly known to offer high-end messaging features like single and group video chats, chat moderation, location sharing, and quite a few others on a monthly subscription basis. Besides this, you can also host chat apps on MirrorFly’s cloud servers.
Key Features
- Lifetime free chat SDKs
- 21-day free trial on video SDKs
- Easy integration
- Pre-built UI kits
- End-to-end security
MirrorFly – Self-hosted video call APIs
The self-hosted video chat solution gives developers the choice to build a scalable and secure white-label chat app for a one-time license cost. By paying only once, they can also avail 150+ customizable call and chat features.
Key Features
- 100% customizable SDKs
- White-label video chat solution
- On-premise hosting
- Hire Dedicated Team
Also Read: The 5 Best Communication Protocols of 2023
2. Twilio – “Most Compatible Platform”
This is a major cloud-based communication platform that supports video, speech, and messaging API, visual design, and interaction, all this combined with creation builders. Its APIs are well known to simplify the workflow and connect with people across the world for a better user interaction experience.
Moreover, the developers find Twilio to be impressive as it increases the increased efficiency as soon as integrated in no time when integrating. On the whole, it offers an optimized end-user experience with its fine API.
Also Read: Best Twilio Alternatives in 2023
3. Opentok – “Easy to Implement & Enjoy”
Opentok is a platform that provides the developers with highly compatible API’s that can be implemented easily into any of their web app interfaces or mobile devices. These APIs include high-quality interactive video, voice, chat features and related components with functionalities.
It is meant for multiple browsers and devices regardless of geographical locations. Opentok library allows the video chat app to connect to a session or publish a stream to a session, or subscribe to a stream for a session easily and instantly without any downtime and delay.
Conclusion:
The discussions above show that in order to choose the perfect video conferencing app development strategy multiple steps need to be adopted. The fundamental factors are assessing resource availability and with the choice of perfect technology vendor. Whether be your pre-built app, or third-party such as CONTUS MirrorFly’s video conferencing APIs, integration could be the perfect solution for your business application!
So, Let’s make a move and build your online conference app & spread your brand globally.
All the Best!
If You’re Ready To Integrate Video Conferencing Solutions in Your Mobile and Web Apps.
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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
How long does it take to build a video conferencing app?
Building a video conferencing app from scratch might take months to years, depending on your requirements and tech stack. But MirrorFly offers hassle-free integration of their video, voice, and chat SDKs in a range of minutes to hours, depending on your requirements.
What is the best language to build a video conferencing app?
The best language to build a video conferencing app depends on your project requirements, targeted platforms (web, Android, iOS, and desktop), team expertise, etc. However, here is a list of the best languages based on the targeted platforms:
- iOS: swift
- Android: Kotlin/Java
- Web: Javascript, HTML5/CSS
- Desktop: C, C++, Electron
What makes a good video conferencing app?
There are certain conditions for a good video conferencing app, such as HD video and HQ audio, interactive chat features, the ability to create, schedule, and join meetings, collaboration features, integration features, recording and playback, push notifications, low latency support, robust security features, and compatibility with privacy regulations.
What is the future of video conferencing technology?
Video conferencing is now a key tool for business communications. As for the hybrid and remote working models, video conferencing takes care of team collaboration, monitoring, meetings, and work completion. In the future, we can see its enormous growth in every field and continue to give it support, uniting the world remotely and facilitating global reach.
We are building a video conferencing app for both Android and iOS and we want to implement video and voice feature in it. We want to use your video conferencing API for it & want to know more about pricing. Thanks
Hii team, i am working in a project, for that, I want to build a video streaming platform or app. Kindly send me the app features and pricing details to my email id.
I am interested to build a video conferencing app for my e-commerce business. What’s the price for the video conferencing API and are there any monthly subscriptions involve.
We need to integrate chat feature on our existing video conferencing app. what could be the costs?
We are developing a health care solution, so we need a video conferencing API & SDK to improve our telecom video conferencing app development.
Hi we are interested in building a video conferencing app for multiple users. What’s the price for your video conferencing API and are there any monthly subscriptions involved?
Hello Naren, claps on your interest in building a video app! I’m truly glad to hear that you are interested in our video calling SDK and wish to know more about our pricing. When it comes to pricing, we are the best in the market as we offer both monthly subscription and custom pricing models (great for white labeled solutions) for users to build apps as per their needs in the most affordable ways. If you are interested to proceed further, give our experts a call.