Want to learn how to make a voice and text chat app like Discord? Read on, and we’ll break down the tech stack you’ll need, the development steps, and the cost to make an application like Discord.
Discord – No Longer Just a Gaming Chat App
Discord, a free platform that blends text, video, and voice chat online, has experienced tremendous growth since its launch in 2015. It falls under the Voice Over IP (VoIP) software category, as it allows users to make calls over the internet, but it does so much more than that.
Discord pushed the boundaries of what VoIP apps could do and, as a result, has experienced much success. Just take a look at a few key figures:
- In 2016, Discord earned $5 million in revenue. In 2020, the figure had jumped to $130 million.
- In 2017, Discord had 10 million monthly active users. In 2021 — 140 million.
- In 2017, Discord had a valuation of $1.6B. In 2021 — $7B.
At its onset, Discord was primarily used in the gaming community. Even today, it’s still known as a “gaming chat” app — but its usage has expanded far beyond gamers and streamers. There are Discord communities for practically every niche available: from memes and dating to sports and investment. There’s even a growing “Discord for Business” movement, although Slack is still the leader for business messaging.
Every day, Discord users send 850 million messages and experience 4 billion minutes of conversation. But why is Discord drawing and retaining such a large audience? And more importantly, what can you take as inspiration from Discord and apply to your own VoIP app?
- Takeaway 1: All-in-one chatting options. Prior to Discord, TeamSpeak was the main voice chat for gamers. However, users were unable to create multiple voice channels. And, what’s more, if they wanted to create a server with voice calls and text through TeamSpeak, they’d have to pay a rental fee. But Discord combined just what users needed: a way to create communities with multiple voice channels with text chats (and, later on, video chat) — and at no cost.
- Takeaway 2: Excellent organization. It’s easy to compartmentalize different topics within a Discord community. You can create text channels (essentially, chat groups) for whichever purpose you’d like, and they can be organized into categories. To illustrate this, I’m going to speak from my own experience — I’m part of a book club server, and it has several text channel categories: Members, Books, and Extras, for instance. Under each one, there are a variety of channels to chat in — under Members, for instance, you can discuss book deals, book news, and recommendations. Voice channels can be organized in a similar way.
- Takeaway 3: Customization. Discord provides users with plenty of customization options. Servers can be customized by adding user roles, in which certain users have permission to do certain tasks (for instance, some servers assign moderators who can delete comments). Users can also customize their profiles; they can change their avatars, upload a profile banner, create an “About Me” bio, and leave a customized message that shows up under their username.
- Takeaway 4: Many integrations. Discord is famous for its sheer number of integrations: there are over hundreds of thousands of bots that server hosts can use to add new features. These bots can add music, ticketing systems, polls, calendars, stat tracking, giveaways, and many more exciting functions to the group chat.
So, if you want to build a voice chat app like Discord, it should include robust chatting options, organization, customization, and integrations.
Tech Stack for Developing an App Like Discord
It’s common practice for clients to go with the tech stack that their development team uses — but we recommend getting a general understanding of what a VoIP tech stack looks like. This way, you can ensure that the tech stack your development team uses fully accounts for the features you want to include in your app.
So, to give you a launching point, we’ll show you what tech stack Discord uses.
What to Consider When Selecting a Tech Stack for a VoIP App
To build a voice chat like Discord, you should ensure that your VoIP app is high-performing, secure, scalable, and maintainable.
- High-Performing. Your app should load from the closest source, use caching and prefetching, load API responses quickly, and optimize images and videos. A large technical stack is necessary to maintain the app’s integrity and performance in real-time.
- Secure. Developers should encrypt all data, as well as use code hardening and signing. They should be very cautious before selecting third-party libraries and should only use authorized APIs.
- Scalable. The tech stack should support your growth goals. Consider scalability at the architectural level – for a highly scalable app, consider using popular, flexible programming languages like JavaScript or Python.
- Maintainable. The codebase should neither be too lengthy nor too concise. Overly concise code can lead to errors while debugging, and lengthy code takes longer to process. Furthermore, the architecture must be scalable, mobile, and supportive of reusability.
How Does Discord Make Money?
Part of Discord’s popularity can be attributed to its free nature: users can set up servers with text, voice, and video capabilities at no cost. Furthermore, the platform does not run any ads. How, then, does Discord make money?
Discord gets most of its revenue through Nitro — a premium subscription package that offers users lots of perks. Users can sign up for Nitro Classic ($4.99/month; $49.99/year) or Nitro ($9.99/month; $99.99/year).
Besides the Nitro subscription scheme, Discord also makes money through server boosting. This feature allows users to unlock perks for their server of choice. They can select how many boosts they’d like to get per month (each one costs $4.99 per month) — and upon activation, servers will receive more emoji slots, better audio quality, better live stream quality, and much more.
So, in essence, Discord makes money by offering users excellent text, video, and voice chatting features for free — and then offering deep customization for a monthly cost.
There is another major way that Discord makes money, but it may not be applicable to you if you aren’t making a gaming VoIP. Discord gets distribution fees from game stores; developers can sell their video games through verified servers, and Discord keeps 10% of the revenue.
Step-by-Step Guide to Making an App Like Discord
Now that you have a better idea of why Discord is popular, how it works, and how it makes money, we’ll walk you through the process of making a similar VoIP app.
How Much Does It Cost to Make an App Like Discord?
The cost to make a chat app like Discord depends on several factors, including the following.
- The number of platforms the app will be available on (desktop, web, iOS, Android)
- The number of features
- The complexity of the UI design
- Which team members will be needed (Project Manager, UI/UX Designer, Android/Flutter Developer, iOS Developer, DevOps, QA), their location, and their hourly cost
For a Discord-like app with the MVP features we covered in the previous section, you can expect to pay $38,000 for a cross-platform version, and the development time will take 3-4 months.
Conclusion
Whether you want to follow Discord’s lead and create a VoIP app for gamers — or branch out to fill a market gap — you need a skilled development team on your side. And you’re already at the right place. Attract Group has deep experience in web and mobile development. Our apps are responsive, intuitive, and attractive, our projects are efficiently managed under the Agile process, and our QA ensures your product is seamless and free of errors. Get a free quote for your VoIP mobile app development today.
