What’s better? – Building video chat app or buying video chat APIs

There’s no denying that digitalization is growing at a rapid pace with each passing day and people are moving to the digital aspect of everything. In such virtual times, people want quick communications to carry forward their day to day activities. And video interactions are one of the fastest ways to meet the smooth conversation requirement. Hence, it has become essential for almost all businesses to integrate the power of video chats into their business operations. Have been planning to leverage the magic of video chats for your business? We must say that it’s a great business decision. There are two ways of utilizing video chats for your business. Either you build your own video chat app from scratch or buy well-functioning video chat APIs. In this article, we shall highlight an analysis on whether to build a video chat app from scratch or buy live video call api or chat APIs. We shall discuss both the possibilities in detail. Stay with us and read on. 

How to build your own real time video chat app? 

Today’s modern age video chat apps have a plethora of advanced features to fulfil audiences’ communication requirements. So, if you want to match up with them, you need to strategize well before building your own app. 

Speed, user interface, chat privacy, and security are some of the top features that need to be present in your video chat app. You should certainly integrate these features in your video chat app. Moreover, you would be required to add some additional advanced features into your app to set yourself apart from the competitive clutter. This way, there are more chances that your app will be recognized and liked by your customers.  Your app will garner more positive feedback responses also. Hence, it becomes important to study the market well and perform a detailed research before building your chat app from scratch. 

Points to consider in order to make your own video chat app 

 Creating a video chat app from scratch is not a one day task. A lot of effort and resources go into building a video chat of your own. Some of them being capital investment, time, opportunity cost, and other important factors. Let’s take a closer look at them one by one. 

1. Financial costs

The first thing that you need to consider before starting to build your app is the total financial costs that you would be required to invest. As a business, you should have a planned budget before proceeding further. The financial costs for building your app would have various costs included in it such as app infrastructure cost, maintenance cost, salaries of developers, and others. You need to study these factors well before starting the app development process. Otherwise, without a set budget, there are possibilities that your app development might witness a pause period. 

2. Choosing the right infrastructure

There are several advanced features that people expect out of an app these days. You should always make sure to choose the right infrastructure for your app. For instance, your app must be able to store chat history, support media exchange, allow screen share, possess privacy and encryption functions, and so on and so forth. When you make a choice about the kind of infrastructure for your app, you might also be required to calculate the overall cost that it would incur. 

3. Overall development budget

As discussed above, app creation and development involve a lot of resources. And, therefore, you need to set up a well-defined budget as per your business requirements. You need to allocate the right budget to your app development process. Some of the many aspects that you should focus on are server costs, network layers, messaging protocols, VoIP, database management, cloud servers, and other important factors. When you have a well-planned budget for your video chat app, the process of development gains more speed. 

4. Developer cost

Every business has a different budget.  You would be required to take the help of engineers and developers for creating your video chat app. Hence, you need to set your hiring budget as well. App building should be a well-thought decision and should include the consideration of developer cost too. 

5. App hosting cost

In order to build an efficient video chat, it is important that you leverage an advanced hosting solution. And for that, you need to assess and manage your budget well. The advantage of an advanced app hosting solution is that it makes your app faster and provides the users with a good app experience. 

6. Opportunity cost of app 

Opportunity cost is related to the allocation of personnel and budget to your app development process. You need to consider the fact if more resources and capital would enhance your app development process or not. 

7. Investment of time

Time is a crucial factor when it comes to the development of your app. It is a well-known fact that app development is a time consuming process. You need to plan out the duration period of your app. Time factor does not only revolve around the development period but also the maintenance and troubleshooting period. If you’re looking for a quick communication setup for your business, building a video chat from scratch may not be a very good idea. 

8. Video chat app infrastructure 

App infrastructure includes a plethora of essential features such as cloud hosting, programming language, and other important factors. All these factors should address your app requirements. Otherwise, there may be some issues in the development process. This, in turn, could lead to delay in the app launch. 

Who all should build a video chat app? 

One important factor that comes into play for building a video chat app is the availability of time and resources.  So, businesses that want to integrate a video call api into your video chat app into their platform on an immediate basis or businesses that have limited resources shouldn’t go for building a chat app from scratch. 

However, here is a list of type of businesses that can invest in creating a video chat app: 

• Businesses that have practical know-how on building video chat apps and adequate time and resources. 

• Companies that are capable of investing time and resources on the future up gradation of the app and related technologies. 
  
• Businesses that can ensure the privacy and security of chat communications. 

How about buying a video chat app API? 

If you feel that you have limited time and resources as a business, then getting full-featured video chat APIs is the best option for you. API stands for Application Programming Interface. There are many APIs in the market that can support Android, iOS, and web browsers. They are easy to integrate and can offer state-of-the-art video chat app features to you. Buying a video chat API is a quick way to start your video communications with customers. 

It’s just a matter of a few steps mentioned below: 

• First of all, you need to identify the chat features that you need in your application.  

• In addition to that, information about your current tech stack is needed and the platforms where you need the chat features to be included. 
  
• Moreover, you’ll be required to jot down details about the extra features that you might need for your platform such as customization options, privacy functions, and number of participants. 

And, you are all set to buy a video chat API after considering the above mentioned features. Looks like a quick and easy process, right? 

How much cost and time is required for buying & integrating a video chat API? 

Well, the cost and time that goes into buying and integrating  a video chat API is far less than the amount invested in building a video chat app from scratch. The best part about video chat APIs is that they are mostly easy to integrate. The deployment may take a day or two depending on how quick you want it to be implemented.  The cost of APIs depends on the video chat app API provider. Some features might be free of cost while some  premium features may be charged.  But that charge is nothing before the investment that one has to incur on building a video chat app from scratch. 

What kind of businesses should opt for video chat API? 

All those companies who have limited time and resources and want to launch video chats as quickly as possible should consider buying a video chat API. 

Let’s have a look at some kinds of businesses that can opt for buying a video chat API: 

• Businesses that don’t have a full-fledged tech team to look after app development.

• Companies that are new to the business world and want to save their resources for future use. 

•  Businesses that want quick communication solutions.  

So, if you fall in any of the categories mentioned above, you may take a step forward towards buying a video chat API. 

Conclusion 

Enhanced communication is the key to building relations with customers in present virtual times. And, a video chat app is one of the best ways to build a robust communication system. We hope our article helped you gain a good insight on the analysis on whether to build a video chat app from scratch or buy video chat APIs. Ultimately, it’s your call to take. All we hope is that you achieve your business goals by setting a strong video communication platform for yourself. 

Happy video communications to you!