How To Develop A Video Conferencing App Like Zoom? Complete Guide

2020 had been a year of transformation and entirely changed how we lead our lives. It challenged us to find new transforming ways in order to still thrive amid the pandemic. It started with people fretting over, initially, but some saw this as an opportunity to challenge themselves and find new ways to thrive and not survive.

One big change we all noticed amid the pandemic has certainly been the rise in the use of video conferencing mobile apps. Earlier these apps were mostly used by the multinational firms that had offices all around the globe. However, the scenario was different during pandemic and it continues ever post-pandemic, as these apps have noticed widespread adoption even among the small business owners.

As per the reports the much-prominent video conferencing app “Zoom” gained more than 2.5 million users just within the first quarter of 2020, and a plethora of companies across the globe have embraced this video-first culture and it is believed that by the year 2024, the market for video conferencing is going to reach $20 billion.
Source: Statista

Owing to the major popularity of Zoom app, today, there are a number of businesses that are keen on getting their own app developed and, in this article, we will cover everything that one needs to know regarding the development of video conferencing apps like Zoom.

Everything About The Zoom App

This cloud-based video conferencing app was found in Eric Yuan, an engineer from the Cisco Systems in 2012. Its main purpose was to make people virtually meet other people by video, audio, or both, as desired by them. Compatible with iOS, Mac, Android, Linux, Windows, etc., this app was used by more than half of the Fortune 500 companies in 2020 and they still continue using it.

The apps allows to make calls for free, as long as they are under 40 minutes, while for the conversations longer than 40 minutes, the users require upgrading for $14.99/monthly plan. This entry level upgrade allows hosting conferencing calls with maximum of 100 people at a time and they can continue to talk for whole 24 hours.

Get Started with Zoom

Getting started requires choosing a plan as per your requirement, it can be:

Revenue Model For Zoom Video Conferencing App

In case you are wondering how Zoom app makes money, here we tell you how by describing these revenue models, they are:

Zoom Meeting

This is the main feature of Zoom mobile app and it allows people to make remote video calls. And when the call is kept under 40 minutes, the app doesn’t charge its users, however, when users want the uninterrupted meetings lasting more than 40 minutes, then they require spending $14.99/month and in case they go with the annual plan, then the cost is $12.49/month. In case you are keen on getting Zoom-like app for your business, then you can have one and get similar revenue model. Meanwhile, this kind of model is called Freemium model.

Zoom Rooms and WorkSpaces

Zoom offers physical conferencing rooms systems as well, where it allows the companies to conduct video meetings in these conference rooms. The basic idea is offering customers with hardware & physical space needed for carrying out conferences minus the difficulties to manage them. The company even has a professional service unit ensuring smooth working of the conference rooms. The Zoom app has partnered with the hardware manufacturers to offer necessary hardware support for the conference rooms. Here the Zoom app charges a monthly fee (or annual fee, in case users choose that) from the users.

Zoom Phone

This product is designed for the users who don’t want the video calling feature and only prefer voice calling and the tools for use this feature is available in the main product. Meanwhile, Zoom Phone have features like secure HD conversations for audio, voicemail & call recording, automated call management and routing with the use of AI, auto attendants & IVR tools that makes the calling experience smooth. For this product, they offer monthly subscription model.

Zoom Integrations

These are all the tools which allow integration with the zoom video conferencing app

Companies That Use Zoom

These are some of the companies who have implemented or used zoom in their tech stack.

Other Popular Video Conferencing Apps In The Market

Here are some of the popular video conferencing apps. Some of these are used by individuals and some are designed to target professionals who use it for corporate meetings.
Houseparty, Google Duo, Facetime, WhatsApp, Viber, Jitsi, Starleaf, Whereby, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Google Hangouts, and  Cisco Webex are used by lots of people everyday for video calling and conferencing.

Source: Statista

Basic Features of Video Conferencing Apps

All apps are not same, and what sets apart one app from another is the features they are offering to their users. And here we discuss them necessary features for video-conferencing apps like Zoom.

• Register via email or social media profile
• Create & Manage profile
• Use Virtual background in video meetings
• Chat with team while attending video meeting
• Take Notes in video conference
• Show Pre-call Video preview
• Share file during video conference
• Share desktop screen
• Mark contacts, channels and messages as starred to keep them on top
• Push notifications for upcoming meetings
• Integrate with 3rd party apps like Google calendar & web browsers
• Softphone to make and receive phone calls from within the app
• Numeric keypad to dial internal extensions and make PSTN calls
• View video calls and meetings history
• Manage and playback your voicemails
• Change app theme
• Make instant video calls to regular contacts
• Manage and add meeting ID’s of people in contacts
• Record video calls and store in cloud
• Check who uses video calling app in your social media circle
• Invite by email to chat or call
• Create a private channel or join a public channel
• Schedule meetings
• Set availability status for meetings

Advanced Features To Add In A Video Chat & Conferencing App

High Camera Resolution

It is best to have 4K support camera resolution for the video calling apps as it would be really disturbing to interact with a hazy distorted face.

Remote Management

This feature comes handy when users are a large enterprise with multiple VC units. In that case the remote management allows the users to change the settings without having to physically walk from room to room.

Noiseblock

Meetings on video calling apps needs focused attention and background noises with people talking, keyboard typing, kids crying, vehicular traffic, can be a big distraction. The Noise Blocking technology allows to keep these distracting noises at bay during the meeting. What’s unique about this technology is that it recognizes a real person talking, so when it doesn’t find a real person, it mutes the microphone automatically. Meanwhile, acoustic fence technology can also be used to block the unwanted noise. This technology does the marvelous job of building a virtual boundary around meeting area via the use of
microphones. This way the sounds not within this “fence” get blocked.

Auto-Framing

With this feature there is no requirement of manual framing. The absence of this feature would mean wastage of time of the moderator to zoom in & out the video. Here, the camera automatically adjusts the view so everyone present in the group can fit in the screen.

Push Notifications

This is a critical feature for Zoom like app as it allows people to be easily notified about missed calls, messages, updates, or anything else.

Data Encryption

With more and more business using video-conferencing apps, they all want security to be much preferred. In fact, the best way to build trust among people for your video-conferencing apps is to offer their safety by ensuring that their data is in safe hands. And what can be the best way of doing so than end-to-end encryption. This way one can ensure that only the sender and the receiver can see what is shared and discussed.

Host Tracking

In the physical meetings, the focus is generally on the hosts, speakers, or lecturers. The listeners and people in the group must be able to see & feel their body language, see the facial expressions and emotions to totally be in sync with the host. Now this experience can even be added in the video-calling apps through this feature of Host Tracking. The systems can actively zoom in on the host actively tracking their body movements and this way speaker can always be in the focus.

Optical Zoom

In the absence of zoom-in feature, it is not possible to see a certain thing clearly. Hence, this issue can be easily resolved with optical & digital zoom functionality. It is best to integrate optical zoom functionality as it offers better image & video quality in the video calling app.

Virtual Background & Green Screen

The host of video conference will be able to showcase an image/green screen in background using this very functionality. With the use of attractive virtual background images, it will be easier for the speakers to make the experience more appealing.

Live Video Editing

This feature will save a lot of efforts & hours of speaker in the video post-production. There are special effects and other quirks that makes the video a lot more interesting.

Whiteboard Camera System

This is an advanced camera system enabling to attach whiteboard owned by you. The app system will enable speaker to stream the content of whiteboard over video conference. This way the users will be able to download whiteboard contents and thus they have all the important information needed during the conference.

Virtual Hand Raising

Remember how to school we had to raise hands to get something answered so to avoid chaos that would occur when many talking at the same time. Same is with the video conferencing apps. This virtual hand raising functionality allows people to talk only when they raise their hands and this feature comes greatly useful during the webinars and during the discussions among many people when it generally tough to control who speaks and when.

Whiteboards

Here a virtual whiteboard is offered to the users as there are often instances that during the meetings a manager or a supervisor has to explain a point to the team and white board comes helpful for this. They can use pointers or color a specific area and can use the virtual white boar to share images, draw graphs, charts or share numbers with the team members.

Chatroom

For the online meeting apps, Chatroom is a crucial feature that has to be offered to the users and the good thing with mots video-conferencing apps is that it restricts users to only those having an invite code. Only the ones with the invite code can join the video call. As soon as the virtual chat room has been created, a person with the invite code can enter the chat room and join the ongoing meeting or the webinar.

What Technology Stack To Choose For A Video Conferencing App?

Team Required To Develop A Video Conferencing Mobile App

Creating a video-conferencing app like Zoom is going to require a lot of efforts on the part of development team, and it is best to give the task of developing a video conference app to a development firm instead of a freelancer as a lot going in the making of such an app. These are the in-house resources that come along when you choose a video calling app development firm instead of a freelancer:

Project Manager

This is the person entirely responsible for the making and completion of the project. S/he manages the entire team on all stages and gets the work done and at the same time is the communication link between the development team and the business that is getting the app developed.

Android/iOS Developers

Now as per the decision of the business, a team of developers is decided. It can either be a team of Android developers, or a team of iOS developers, or there can even be two team of developers for both of the platforms, if the business chooses to get the app developed for both iOS and Android.

Back-end Developers

This team is responsible to handle the back-end work of the app as this is the core of the app and the backend developers have to be really adept and experienced.

UI/UX Designers

This is the team responsible for the look and feel of the app, like in terms of users’ experience with the app and this is an important factor deciding the success of the app, hence it is crucial to have a team of sound designers.

Quality Analysts

Once the app has been developed, it is vital to ensure that it doesn’t face any trouble as it runs, and to ensure that the work is working smoothly, we have a team of QA developers, who check the app for any glitches or errors. In case there is an issue, they report the development team so they can work on the same, and if the app runs smoothy without any errors then it is considered complete and ready to be launched.

How Much Does It Cost To Create A Video Meeting App Like Zoom?

There are several factors responsible for the cost of video-calling app, such as:

• Hourly rates of developers
• Design
• Features
• Number of Platforms

However, among these, the biggest factor influencing the total development cost of an app is the hourly development rates and this differs from location to location. For instance, the hourly development rates are higher in the USA, Eastern Europe, whereas it is a lot lesser in the Indian region.

Still to give a rough estimate, the cost to develop a video conferencing app with basic features will be somewhere around $20000-$55000, whereas to create an app with advanced features and technologies and for both the platforms, the cost will be somewhere around $45000-$80000, when chosen Indian region for development.