Real-Time Messaging That Feels Instant
Good chat lives or dies on latency and reliability. Messages have to arrive the moment they're sent, survive a dropped connection, and never appear out of order or duplicated. That's built on persistent real-time connections (WebSockets and similar) with the messages stored durably behind them.
We build the messaging core so it handles the unglamorous cases — reconnection after signal loss, messages sent while offline, and delivery confirmation — because those are exactly what makes a chat app feel trustworthy or broken.
- Real-time delivery over persistent connections with automatic reconnect
- Typing indicators, online/last-seen presence, and read receipts
- One-to-one and group conversations
- Media messages: images, files, voice notes
- Offline send queue and correct message ordering/de-duplication
- Push notifications for messages received while the app is closed
Build vs. Buy, and Building to Scale
You don't always have to build the messaging engine from scratch. Managed services can give you a chat backend quickly, while a custom build gives you full control and no per-message fees. The right choice depends on your scale, budget, and how custom your requirements are.
Whichever path fits, we architect for growth from the start — because a chat design that's fine for hundreds of users can fall over at scale if presence, fan-out, and history aren't planned for. We also plan encryption and moderation where your use case needs them.
- Honest build-vs-buy assessment (managed chat SDK vs. custom backend)
- Scalable message fan-out and history storage
- Presence and unread counts that stay accurate under load
- Encryption in transit, with end-to-end options where required
- Moderation, blocking, and reporting for user safety
- Search and message history that stay fast as volume grows
More on cross-platform apps
Frequently asked questions
Should I build chat from scratch or use a service?
It depends on scale and control. Managed chat services get you live faster and handle the hard real-time infrastructure, but charge ongoing per-user or per-message fees and limit customization. A custom backend costs more upfront but gives you full control and no per-message pricing. We'll weigh your expected volume and requirements and recommend honestly rather than defaulting to one.
Can you make the chat end-to-end encrypted?
Yes, where it fits your needs. All chat should be encrypted in transit; true end-to-end encryption (where even your servers can't read messages) is a stronger guarantee that also limits features like server-side search and moderation. We'll match the encryption level to your use case rather than over- or under-building it.
Will it still work if the user loses connection mid-message?
It should, and we build for it. Messages sent while offline are queued locally and delivered when the connection returns, and the app reconnects automatically without losing the conversation. Handling these edge cases well is the difference between chat that feels reliable and chat that frustrates people.