The Messaging Dilemma: Unraveling the Hidden Costs of DIY Platforms

In today’s connected world, building your own messaging platform for your app might seem like a great idea. This notion is often fuelled by online articles that paint an overly optimistic picture of creating a messaging system from scratch. However, the reality is way more challenging.

In this article, we explain why DIY messaging platforms often create more complications than benefits. We will also discuss how building these systems in-house can divert focus and resources from your app’s core offering, potentially compromising its primary value proposition. Remember, your app is valued for its unique core solution, not for a custom-built messaging system.

Here’s the lowdown on why DIY messaging and communication platforms often cause more headaches than they’re worth:

It Is Often Not Scalable, Nor Cost-Effective

One of the biggest challenges with DIY messaging platforms is scalability and high availability. Just because a homegrown solution works for 50 users and can handle 51 doesn’t mean it will work smoothly for millions. Today’s apps often need to cater to millions of concurrent users, and that’s a whole different ballgame.

Load balancing, geographical redundancy, latency from different locations, and database performance are not linear challenges; they grow exponentially with the number of users. Building a platform that can handle such complexity is an enormous task that demands significant expertise and resources.

Even if your app isn’t targeting millions of users, the economics of DIY messaging platforms often don’t add up. The costs associated with development, testing, ongoing updates, and maintenance can quickly become astronomical. This is especially true when you consider the cost per user and compare it with existing platforms that offer professional-grade features and security at as low as 1 cent per active user.

So whether you’re aiming big or starting small, the economics often don’t favor a DIY approach. For large-scale apps, the technical challenges are immense. For smaller apps, the cost-per-user doesn’t justify the effort. Either way, reinventing the wheel usually isn’t the best move. Instead, the time and resources could be better invested in enhancing your app’s core features—the very features that set it apart from the competition.

You’ll Need More Features Than You Think

Basic text messaging is just the beginning. Users today expect to share photos, videos, files, and other media seamlessly within the app. They also expect real-time presence information, such as knowing when their contacts are online, typing, or available to join a conversation. Depending on your app requirements, you’ll need to incorporate robust group management functionalities. For social networking apps, you might need to provide user profiles with real-time updates, privacy controls, and access restrictions.

But it doesn’t stop there. Voice and video calls have become standard features in many apps, and depending on your app, you may also require group calling and conferencing. Location sharing, another increasingly popular feature in apps such as dating, ride-sharing, and fleet management, demands careful implementation to balance functionality with user privacy and battery life.

Implementing each of these features is a significant undertaking on its own. For example, video calling and conferencing require complex protocols for real-time audio/video transmission, handling varying network conditions, and managing multiple concurrent streams in group calls. Simply using WebRTC libraries won’t be enough (we’ll cover this in another article soon). Location sharing needs to be implemented with careful consideration for battery life and privacy controls.

It all adds up fast, and before you know it, you’re not just building a messaging app – you’re creating a full-fledged communication platform. The complexity grows exponentially when you consider that each feature needs to be implemented, tested, and maintained for multiple operating systems and device types. The resources required to develop and maintain all these features can quickly outstrip what most teams anticipate. This is why leveraging existing platforms that already have these features built-in, tested, and optimized can save enormous amounts of time and resources.

Your App Likely Needs to Work on More Than One Platform

In today’s app ecosystem, cross-platform compatibility is a must. Most apps need to function seamlessly across Android, iOS, web, and possibly even other platforms. Creating and maintaining APIs that work across all these platforms is no small feat. Each platform has its own quirks, and you’ll need to ensure that your messaging system works consistently across all of them.

This challenge is compounded by the fact that platform APIs change frequently. New updates can break your carefully crafted code, requiring constant vigilance and updates to maintain compatibility. This never-ending cycle of updates can be a significant drain on your resources, especially when you’re trying to keep up with the rapid pace of change in the tech world.

Your Users Are Probably Using More Than One Device

It’s pretty common for users to hop between their phones, tablets, and computers. Users expect all features to work seamlessly across all their devices and platforms. For example, they expect to see their messages synced up everywhere in real-time or be able to pick up or make calls from any device. Pulling this off requires some clever algorithms. Unless you can nail these features, your app might feel a bit behind the times.

Your Users aren’t Likely to be Online All the Time

Mobile devices spend a lot of time sleeping. You need to figure out how to handle offline messages, store them, wake up devices with push notifications when messages come in, and sync everything up. And you’ve got to do all this without draining the battery. It’s more complex than it sounds!

Security and End-to-End Encryption Are Tough Nuts to Crack

Security is more critical than ever. Users are highly sensitive about keeping their personal information safe, and your app will be judged based on how well it protects their data.

For example, in a high-profile case, the FBI asked Apple to create a backdoor to bypass the encryption on a shooter’s iPhone. Apple refused, arguing that creating such a tool would compromise the security of all iPhones. Apple’s stance in this case significantly boosted public trust in their platform. In fact, recent surveys show that people tend to trust Apple over other mobile platforms when it comes to data protection, largely due to incidents like this where Apple took a strong stand in protecting user data.

Building a secure, end-to-end encrypted messaging platform is a monumental task that requires deep cryptographic knowledge and solid commitment to user privacy. Companies like mesibo and Signal have invested substantial resources into developing secure messaging platforms. Their systems are designed to be so secure that even the company itself cannot access user data. Achieving this level of security involves more than just implementing encryption—it requires building a system that is resistant to sophisticated attacks, future-proofed against emerging threats like quantum computing, and still user-friendly.

For a DIY messaging platform, matching this level of security is an enormous challenge. It’s not just about implementing encryption – it’s about doing it in a way that’s bulletproof against sophisticated attacks, resistant to future quantum computing threats, and still allows for features users expect like searching encrypted messages or syncing across devices. Unless you have a team of security experts and the resources to constantly update and maintain your security measures, it’s incredibly difficult to match the level of protection offered by specialized platforms.

Data Ownership: Maintain Control Over Your Data

One of the few valid reasons for considering a DIY messaging platform is to maintain control over your data. In today’s digital landscape, concerns about data privacy and the potential misuse of information by big tech companies are legitimate. This concern isn’t just theoretical; it’s based on real-world events and ongoing debates.

For instance, at a recent Google I/O Extended event in San Francisco, a concern was raised about how Google might use account data to train their Gemini and other LLMs without any satisfactory answer from Google. This isn’t just a privacy issue - it’s also about competitive advantage. If a tech giant can use data from various apps to improve their AI models, they could potentially outcompete the very apps providing that data.

Moreover, recent antitrust rulings have further highlighted the risks of not having full control over your data. While not directly related to messaging platforms, these rulings underscore a crucial point: data that’s not under your direct control is vulnerable to misuse, whether intentional or not. So, the desire to build your own platform to maintain data control is understandable despite the challenges described above.

However, building a DIY platform isn’t the only way to maintain data control. Platforms like mesibo offer the ability to self-host their entire platform at no cost, allowing you to control your data without taking on the massive task of developing and maintaining a messaging system on your own. This approach allows you to leverage a professionally developed, feature-rich platform while keeping your data within your own infrastructure. It’s particularly appealing for businesses dealing with sensitive information or those operating in highly regulated industries.

By choosing a self-hosted solution, you’re not entrusting your data to a potential competitor. Instead, you’re using a robust, tested platform while maintaining complete control over your data. This approach offers the best of both worlds: the advanced features and reliability of a professional messaging platform, combined with the data sovereignty of a DIY solution.

Keeping Up with Updates Is a Never-Ending Task

As mobile platforms evolve, your messaging solution needs to keep pace. This means constant updates to stay compatible and secure. Maintaining a DIY platform requires ongoing effort and attention. It’s like painting the Golden Gate Bridge — by the time you finish, it’s time to start over again. The constant cycle of updates can be exhausting and diverts resources away from what truly matters: your app’s core features.

How to Choose the Right Platform

With so many options out there, it can be challenging to choose the right platform. A recent study showed that for large-scale deployments, only mesibo and SendBird could scale. However, SendBird doesn’t offer self-hosting which mesibo does, and the strongest end-to-end encryption protocol and many more additional features, making mesibo the best choice. If you don’t need that level of scalability, security, and features, other platforms might be suitable too, but the key is to avoid reinventing the wheel.

Focus on Your Secret Sauce, Not on Reinventing Communication

At the end of the day, your app’s success isn’t going to hinge on how well you’ve built a messaging system from scratch. It’s going to be about what makes your app unique – your “secret sauce”. Whether that’s a revolutionary social network concept, a game-changing business tool, or the next big thing in e-commerce, that’s where your energy should be focused.

Think of it this way: if you were opening a restaurant, you wouldn’t start by trying to invent a new kind of oven or refrigeration system. Instead, you’d use existing kitchen technology and pour your energy into creating amazing recipes and providing a fantastic dining experience. The same principle applies here. By using an existing messaging platform, you’re freeing up your time, resources, and brainpower to concentrate on what really matters: your core offerings and set it apart from the competition.

Finally, Support and Documentation are often Overlooked

When you build your own messaging platform, you’re responsible for everything, including supporting your team and documentation. This means that if something breaks, or if you need to onboard new developers to your team, there’s no external support to turn to. You have to build and maintain your own documentation, handle troubleshooting, and provide ongoing support.

On the other hand, established messaging platforms come with comprehensive documentation, active support communities, and dedicated customer support. These resources can be invaluable when you run into issues or need to implement complex features. They allow your development team to focus on building your core app rather than getting bogged down in the intricacies of maintaining a messaging system.

Conclusion

While the idea of creating your own messaging platform might seem cool, the reality is often a lot messier. Existing platforms like mesibo offer scalability, security, and a wealth of features right out of the box. By leveraging them, you can save time, money, and a whole lot of headaches. Plus, you’ll end up with a more reliable, feature-rich solution for your users.

Remember, users care about the overall experience and the value your app provides, not about how you’ve built the messaging system. By leveraging established platforms, you can focus on what makes your app unique, rather than getting bogged down in the complexities of messaging infrastructure. That’s the smart way to stand out in today’s crowded app marketplace!