Realtime chat applications have become significant to all types of industries. The industries that have been profited by realtime messages are mainly the social, clinical, dating, commercial centre applications, and businesses that require on-request applications – among others.

Real time messaging platform have effectively replaced several forms of traditional communication methods in today’s businesses and made communication between the business and the target audience instant and operative.

However, creating such applications from starch requires a lot of time and investment because of which many industries prefer realtime messaging solution.

There are mainly three benefits of Real time chat solution

1.Instantly Operational

Readymade chat solution are instantly operational and your team does not have to build a real time chat app from starch. As a business you can save time and effort by simply adding a real time chat functionality with the software product the business is already using.

2.Enhanced Services

Chat solution offered enhanced solutions! Ready-made chat solution allow businesses to multitask,which means you can communicate with a large set of users simultaneously. Such apps also make the channel of communication and delegation clear and error-free.

3.Communication Analytics:

real time chat API solution have become an unquestionable requirement as they offer analytical data to businesses. Most real time messaging solutions do not only provide administrators to supervise the chats but also offer analytical data to the marketers of the business to understand their target audience thoroughly.

Why you should consider ready-made real time chat solutions

Real time chat are a must have tool for every type of business. There are multiple advantages of having a real time chat solution such as it reduces expenses, rises sales, enhances customer service, enable to reach of potential customers, offers customer convenience, expands markets, etc. Nevertheless, what makes ready-made real-time chat solutions the need for the hour!

Integration with third party messaging API or chat SDK make the process simpler, cost-effective, and time-efficient. To build real time messaging applications, businesses have to spend an extensive amount of resources and the process can get complicated. Moreover, users are familiar with commonly known real-time chat applications such as WhatsApp, Telegram, or WeChat.Because of which users expect standardized formats or upgrades that are not only difficult to develop but also hard to maintain.

Thus, ready-made real time messaging app are a great solution! Most renowned apps are reliable and ensure secure data transfer. They also follow the compliance put-forth by ISO 27001, HIPAA, and GDPR – which is crucial mainly for businesses related to healthcare and finance.

Types of Real Time Chat Platform: Hosted & Self-Hosted Chat Solution

Hosted Real Time Chat Application

Hosted chat services offer developers the benefits of everything being ready-made. Developers can connect with real time Chat SDK & Messaging API providers.and integrate into their software, web, or mobile apps.

Hosted Chat Solution Pros & Cons:

Pros

Easy Integration: As mentioned above, developers only need to add a code to integrate the chat system. This makes it easy to integrate the function and allows the business to focus on more important aspects of attaining effective communication among the users.

Expert Support: Hosted realtime chat application which is a third party system developers do not need to fix bugs, configure the server or deploy, support, and maintain codes. Developers are supported by a team of experts on the chat application that offers round the clock assistance.

Scalability: Third party Ready-made live chat solutions offer scalability. Hosted real time chat application works best for large enterprises as there is no limit on scalability. The user level can be increased at greater levels as the business grows.

Cons

Limited Customization: Developers have limited control over the hosted systems to configure chat functionality as per their preference. Although, Ready made chat applications offer industry-specific customization. However, at times some types of changes related to the design or the configuration are not possible.

Comparatively Higher Cost: Hosted chat services offer scalability but it comes at a cost.The greater number of users that communicate on the chat platform, the more costly the service gets. This is mainly because of chat application charges based on monthly active users

Different Servers: Hosted realtime messaging applications store chat history and database on different servers. Even though you have complete access to the chats and you may download and store the data, they are hosted on different servers.

Self-Hosted Real Time Chat Application

Self-hosted real time chat applications offered you a chat system with open source code. This means that you have a Ready-made realtime chat solution provided by a third-party providers that you can limitlessly customize. You can build a real-time messaging app with a self-hosted messaging service by simply buying the available source code. You can deploy the platform on your servers

Advantages

Lifetime License: Self-hosted real time messaging services offer you source codes with lifetime licenses. You do not have to pay based on the number of app users or a monthly subscription. Most commonly, once you buy the source code you can freely use it for a lifetime.

Superior Opportunities: A self-hosted real time Chat(SDK,API)
provides superior opportunities in terms of application and execution of the chat platform. The developer does not just integrate live chat into apps but creates a Instant Messaging solution in harmony with the requirements of the particular business or industry.

Customizable Features: Deployingself-hosted realtime messaging service gives businesses more control and autonomy over other versions of instant chat solutions. This is because self-hosted real time chat application offers endless customizable features allowing industries to evolve and businesses to grow as their scope of requirements changes.

Disadvantages:

Server Administration: There is no support or assistance offered to administrate the server and you will require self-server administration. Eventually, your developer will have to put in more time, effort, and resources compared to a hosted service.

Hosting Resources: Unlike hosted real-time chat applications, self-hosted real-time messaging services require you to buy a dedicated server of larger hosting space to deploy the chat platform. This also acts as an added cost.

Higher Maintenance: Self-hosted real-time chat applications require dedicated developers, servers, and several other added resources increasing the overall costs. Hence, there is no doubt that self-hosted real time chat applications require higher maintenance.

Aslo Read : Top 10 Real-time Chat SDK and Messaging API Providers for Android,iOS and Web [2021]

Top Hosted & Self Hosted Chat Services Used to Integrate Live Chat into Apps:

Here we have listed the top hosted and self-hosted real time chat services prominently used to integrate live chat into mobile apps or software

1.MirrorFly

MirrorFly offers a real time chat API solution that is compatible with all platforms such as Android, iOS, and Web. With MirrorFly’s real-time chat solution various industry requirements can be achieved, making MirrorFlytheperfect chat application for all types of businesses.

Moreover, MirrorFly is 100% customizable and scalable, letting you make changes specific to your industry. Unlike other chat apps that can be either hosted on the cloud or premises MirrorFly provides the liberty to have both!

With MirrorFly real time messaging service the experience is seamless as it offers low latency and end-to-end encryption. Also, chat analytics provides you a statistical understanding and targeting of your users/visitors.

MirrorFly also provides complete support with 300+ in-house developers and flexible hosting capabilities.

2.Pusher

Pusher is a hosted messaging API SDK provider offering real time chat systems. Pusher offers easily integrated on multiple platforms from the web, mobile to back end. Moreover, cloud infrastructure enables real-time functionality and features such as instant messaging and push notifications.

Pusher serves as a real-time layer between an app’s server and its clients. The actual function of Pusher is to push data to the client, every time new data enters the servers. You may either choose to build scalable real-time features for your chat system or use programmatic push notification – the idea is to communicate with the client thoroughly.

Pusher offers libraries in PHP, Ruby, Python, Java, .NET, and Go on the server-side and JavaScript, Objective-C (iOS), and Java (Android) on the client-side.

3.PubNub

PubNub is a real time chat platform that offers a powerful realtime network and APIs to send and receive data in any application. It is a chat API application programming interface that provides access to a cloud-based infrastructure with the features to build real time chat experiences.

PubNub is one of the most secure and reliable two-way data networks: the PubNub Data Stream Network, or simply DSN. The PubNub DSN is used by apps and other services that depend on regular instant messaging systems. Also, that platform enables flexible chat APIs and reference applications, making it easy to use on both mobile or web applications.

PubNubAPIs and Chat UIs allow developers to get in-app chat up and running in no time! Moreover, the platform enhances the overall chat experience by incorporating third-party data or adding on additional features – such as push notifications, presence detection, etc.

4.Apphitect IM

Integrate live chat API & live chat SDK with Apphitect instant messaging solutions. ApphitectIM also offers a unified messaging API & chat SDK integration system to improvise realtime communication.

ApphitectIM does not only provide you to communicate on a one-on-one basis but also facilitates by creating hangouts to communicate with groups at a time! The platform also provides third-party integrations for extending the chat APIs functionality, customized personal chat, UX, Voice & video call integration, native messaging SDK support, multimedia sharing, etc.

ApphitectIM focuses on social interactions and can build, networks and communities to engage through social chat apps as well.

5.SendBird

Sendbird is a realtime chat solution that is easy-to-use and integrates. Sendbird Chat API, native Chat SDKs, and a fully-managed chat platform on the backend offer reliable and efficient communication measures.

The chat system provides unique functionalities such as delivery receipts, offline messaging, presence, translation, moderation tools, analytics, etc. Sendbirdprovides reference implementations and clone &modify options integrating the app is simple.
Furthermore, the SendbirdUIKit also has pre-built UI components that make it convenient for your developer to set up, integrate, and run the chat platform almost instantly.

What to consider when choosing a Real time messaging API Providers

Now that you have a basic understanding of what third-party messaging platforms exist, it’s time to find out what developers and business owners should take into account when choosing a third-party chat solution.

1. Protocol Independence

Technologies and communication protocols are rapidly changing! Hence, your business needs to adapt to protocol-independent solutions. There are several real-time communication protocols such as WebSockets, MQTT, XMPP, BOSH, COMET, etc. Each protocol allows the exchange of data between an app’s clients and its server. However, with changing environments these protocols may have restrictions. Because of this, ensure protocol independence while choosing a messaging service.

2. Cross-Application Support

Cross-application support is yet another thing to consider while choosing a messaging app. There are plenty of options, but it is crucial to opt for a solution that provides support for multiple runtimes and frameworks. For instance – the chat app PubNubhas over 70 SDKs for different client-side and server-side languages such as Xamarin, React, Python, Go, Erlang, Cocoa, etc. On the other hand, pusher offers its libraries in PHP, Ruby, Python, Java, .NET, and Go on the server-side and JavaScript, Objective-C (iOS), and Java (Android) on the client-side. These are specifically developed and supported by members of the Pusher Channels Developer Community.

3. Support for Rich Media Content

Make sure to choose a messaging service that supports up-to-date, interactive, and rich media content. Emoji and stickers, audio, video, images, contacts, locations, etc – are some of the most basic and frequently used media content among users that your chat application service provider must offer you.

4. Pricing and Business Models

Real time messaging service providers offer three types of pricing structure and business models.
· They charge based on number of users,
· They charge a one-time fee for a lifetime license,
· They have monthly, quarterly or annual plans

Choose the chat application based on your industry and ensure that it offers scalability as and when your business grows.

Conclusion

Want to create the best real time chat communication experience for your users by embedding powerful voice, video, and messaging features but still uncertain where to start from?

Speak to an expert about design & development, customization, scalability, pricing structure and so much more!