A Detailed Note On How To Develop An App Like Discord From Scratch

discord clone app
  • Ankit Patel Ankit Patel
  • July 29, 2021
  • 6 min read

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic period, online audio and video chatting gained significant popularity and momentum. Certainly, this trend is not going to slow down, rather it will evolve more. Many companies are today working remotely. This resulted in the development of plenty of online audio and video chatting apps. Hence, there is going to be a huge demand for Discord like app together and so will there be an increased demand for voice chat app development services.

Today one of the most flourishing and successful online audio and video chatting app projects is Discord. Discord clone app covers every single video and text issue. This app makes communication easy for the communicators despite there being distant apart from each other.

Many start-ups are coming up with the Discord app. If you too are interested in making a similar type of app, make sure that you follow all the essential steps required for the development of a viable audio and video chatting app like Discord clone app. Also, you must have very good social media app development services offering a development team. There is no more for any negligence in this highly competitive market.

Before we talk about the set of features and other necessary steps required for creating one of the best online audio and video chatting apps similar to Discord, let us throw some light on the Discord clone app.

● What Is Discord App?

what is discord app

Hammer & Chisel, a gaming app development studio designed and developed Discord for gamers. While playing online games, the gamers had to struggle a lot with built-in voice communication features. This is where Discord was introduced that solved the voice communication issue among the gamers. This app gained immense popularity in the gaming sector in no time. Substantial functionality and positive feedback led to the popularity of this voice-chat mobile app in the entire world.

Through Discord you can create channels and servers to solve different purposes. Apart from this, it can also be used by the corporate sectors for carrying out online meetings and corporate group calls. Undoubtedly, it is one of the handy solutions for meeting different purposes of the users efficiently.

The reasons why most of the companies look forward to Discord like apps are:

  • Enhanced flexibility and compatibility with smartphones
  • Reduced costs
  • Complete portability
  • Highly scalable
  • Support multitasking
  • Bandwidth efficiencies
  • Increased accessibility
  • Clear and uninterrupted voice quality
  • Advanced customized features

● Essential Features

Certainly, when you hire the best voice chat app development services to create an app like Discord implies that you are going to create a futuristic solution for your audiences. To make your app out-of-box, you should not forget to integrate the essential features into it. Below is a list of must-have features for your Discord like app:

  • Servers or/and Channels
  • Servers, as well as channels, are those places from where group chatting can be done. The chatting can be done on the workflow of the organization or on any group party arrangement or on a school project. You can create up to 500 subgroups on each Discord server and can add up to 5000 team members on a Discord server.

    If you are unable to find out the server that could suffice your needs, then your very own server can be created by you. Through your server, you can invite community members or friends and organize a meeting. The authorities enjoyed by the server admin are as follows:

    • Creating text and voice channels
    • Assigning tasks to users
    • Inviting people for joining the server
    • Alteration in the settings of verification for joining server as well as channel levels for avoiding bot accounts and spam
    • Transferring all administrative rights to one more account
  • Roles & Permission Management
  • Admin has the right to assign roles for another account and he can also change permission settings inside channels and servers. Being an admin, you have the complete right to make decisions on who will be given permission to read and send the messages or join the server or channel. As per your wish, you can individually or collectively delineate the permissions.

    You get around 30 permission options that can be joined in various different manners. The management permission can also be transferred. Due to this liberty, many users have been attracted to Discord.

    Ask your voice chat app development services offering developers to add this feature. This feature needs to be there in your Discord like app if you really want to create an exceptional app.

  • Chats
  • Discord was basically created to make voice communication better. Though, text messaging functionality is also there in this app. Apart from text and voice communication, the chat participants can make video calls in private chats as well as in channels. Also, there are dedicated video and voice chatting on some channels of Discord without any messaging option. WebRTC has been used to build this communication. This is an open-source project and uses APIs for providing apps with superb quality video and audio communication.

  • File Sharing
  • Discord has one more very essential feature named File Sharing. Though not upgraded as it is in Telegram or Slack, still it enables the free account users to upload files or documents not exceeding 8 MB. The subscribed users of Discord get the privilege of loading 50MB files. For adding this feature to your app, you need to have a powerful server.

  • Message History
  • Text messages do not consume that much space but can get accumulated with time. There are certain chatting apps in which the messages that are a month old or more get cleared up automatically. No doubt clearing of messages automatically saves ample storage space, but if the messages are related to business it can hamper your work.

    Thus, ensure that your chatting app like Discord clone app has the option of unlimited message history. With unlimited message history, no valuable information will be deleted despite there being more than a month old. Ask your voice chat app development services offering developers to add search functionality to this feature so as to make search easy for your users.

  • Screen Sharing
  • Another essential feature for audio and video chatting apps is the option to share the mobile or PC screen. Screen sharing is the feature that is today needed in every sector and Discord has this feature. Other than solving watching a movie or gaming purposes, this feature enables the businessmen to conduct seminars and teachers to explain the chapter without any hassle. The messages can be easily relayed. This feature results in enhanced communication and eliminates the need for several editorial calls.

  • Alerts & Notifications
  • Through chat apps, communication can be made timely and instantly. Chat apps are used for talking with our family, friends or colleagues and this can be done within seconds. No one would like to miss any calls and messages, especially when it is job or business-related or from our relatives and friends.

    Notification settings option should be there in your audio and video chatting app. Don’t miss to add this feature, as it helps your users in many ways like, they can:

    • Mute all the notifications
    • Mute notifications sent by a particular channel or on a specific chat
    • Mute alerts for a particular time period
    • Partial muting options (1) – Notify tagged people
    • Partial muting options (2) – Notify people when particular words are being used
    • Highlight important notifications
  • Integration Of Social Media
  • social media integration

    Integrating your chatting app with social media accounts or other servers is not at all mandatory. But, if you do so this will be an added benefit for you. Your app users can use their social media credentials and connect to your app. Some chatting apps have only limited social media choices to connect, while the list of social media options in the case of Discord is big, and below are the names:

    • Twitch
    • Steam
    • YouTube
    • GitHub
    • Reddit
    • Battle.net
    • Spotify
    • Twitter
    • Facebook
    • Xbox Live

    For general purposes LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter can be used. For gaming purposes, Steam and Twitch are the best options and for commercial or business purposes, the functionalities and features purely depend upon the type of domain.

● Essential Steps For Creating Discord Like Chatting App

Now, as you have learned about the essential features that need to be integrated into your audio and video chatting app. The next vital steps that are needed for creating Discord clone app like chatting app have been mentioned hereunder:

  • Research the existing market
  • Know your target audiences
  • Hire the best social media app development services offering development team
  • Choose the right technology
  • Create an MVP
  • Ascertain the factors affecting the cost to develop app like Discord
  • Choose a solution that is pre-built
  • Collect feedback
  • Develop the final app

● Tech Stack

As per the functionality and features you want to integrate and according to your project specifications, the tech stack is chosen by the chatting app and social media app development services offering developers. The technologies that are used are:

  • App & data — Stylus, JS, React Native, React
  • DevOps — Webpack
  • Communication protocols – Web-sockets
  • Audio & video calls — Agora.io, Twilio API, Jitsi, Intercom, Getstream API

● Cost To Develop App Like Discord

While ascertaining the development cost of audio and video chatting app the below-stated factors should be taken into account:

Product features

  • Design
  • Rate /hour of the development team
  • Number of development team members
  • Time frame
  • Technology stack
  • Geographical location
  • iOS and/or Android platform

On roughly estimating the cost to develop an app like Discord it will come to around $45,000 to $50,000 or more based on your requirements. However, the exact app development cost depends on the above-mentioned factors. You need to contact social media app development services offering Development companies for precise estimates.

● Conclusion

Discord has been designed with a diverse and strong tech stack. It is attaining new heights of success because of its great communicating features and sophisticated user experience. The market of Discord like mobile applications is evolving. Most of the users prefer communicating via this type of application because of the convenience and ease it provides. Follow the above-stated tips to develop a rocking app just like Discord.

About: Ankit Patel

Ankit Patel is a Sales/Marketing Manager at XongoLab Technologies LLP and PeppyOcean, A leading mobile app development companies. As a hobby, He loves to write articles about technology, marketing, business, web, and mobile. His articles featured on Datafloq, JaxEnter, TechTarget, eLearninggAdobe, DesignWebKit, InstantShift and many more.

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