#applozic

Hey there - we're Hipmob. We help mobile developers and businesses increase conversions, and provide amazing customer support. We work with everyone from small startups to public companies - and our work has been featured on Forbes and CNBC. You can learn more here.

One question we get asked a ton is whether we support in-app group chat. The Hipmob platform supports limited peer-to-peer chat for mobile apps, but our core focus is on helping you communicate with your customers. Many developers however, are looking for easy ways to add group chat and chatrooms to a dating app, to social apps, and many others. To help developers looking for an answer, we created a listing of the resources we know about(And those that have been suggested to us) that help you add group chat to your mobile app or website. You can see the list here.

With this post, we'll go just a little bit deeper into each resource that provides either a backend or mobile SDK you can use in your iOS, Android, or HTML5 apps, so that you can make a more informed choice and be up and running in no time! If you've used any of these and have a strong opinion for or against any of them, we'd love to hear it! Email me at [email protected].

Quick Comparison of Messaging and Group Chat Services.

Mobile SDKs

Scringo Scringo features a mobile SDK that you can install with just one line of code. Adding this SDK to your app brings you either a full screen chat view and inbox, or a swipe in view. In the view comes an inbox, peer-to-peer chat, and group chat rooms. They're focused on making your app more social, and support iOS, Android and Unity (in beta) out of the box. Check them out here.

Quickblox Quickblox has a similar set of features as Scringo, but is set up in a modular fashion, and supports several more platforms. Supported platforms include iOS, Android, Windows Phone 7, Blackberry, and the Web. They also have a readily available REST API. Pricing starts at free, and goes up to enterprise, but they have no dollar amounts readily listed on site. Check them out here.

Backend and Messaging Services For Developers

Talkray Talkray is a YCombinator backed company that provides a developer API for adding group and p2p chat, as well as voice calls to your app. The Talkray developer API is the same one that powers Talkray's mobile apps that have over 20 million users for iOS and Android. Talkray's Developer API is in beta so pricing hasn't been announced - you can check it out here.

Firebase Firebase is also YCombinator backed - they're the team behind the popular website chat tool Envolve (for adding chatrooms to your website). Firebase supports iOS/OS X, Java/Android, Node.js, HTML and is accessible via REST API. Firebase also provides a ton of examples (you can see some here) so it's fairly easy to get started as a newbie. Pricing is based on data transfer, storage and connections, with a free plan. Paid plans start at $49/month, all the way up to $1499 and enterprise. Check them out here..

Since this was first published, Firebase has since been acquired by Google

Applozic Applozic is a chat & messaging SDK for mobile and web apps, powering real time messaging across any device, any platform & anywhere in the world. Their SDK also enables image, file, and location sharing and audio/video conversations. They're a more recent player than the others on this list, and customers include MagicBricks and Azuga. Paid pricing starts at $99/month (billed monthly) for 25,000 monthly actives, and goes all the way up to custom enterprise pricing for >100k monthly actives.Their key differentiators: You can enable chat across your multiple app users, eg: lets say a car marketplace app have multiple apps, one for dealers and another for consumers. You can enable Contextual Chat with Analytics: Buyer-seller can chat for a specific topic/product (eg: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/AppLozic/Applozic-iOS-SDK/master/images/contextBased.png) , all chats are tied with the topic and companies are able to run analytics and extract useful info. Check them out here

Pusher Pusher is a hosted API for adding real time messaging to mobile and web apps. For you this means that you can have a messaging backend up and running in no time - it's really useful for chat, but, just like Firebase, you can do lots of other things as well. The service has quick start docs for iOS and Javascript, and a free plan. Paid pricing starts at $19/month and goes up $199 and enterprise. Check Pusher out here.

Pubnub Pubnub is a cloud service, similar to Pusher, for adding real time messaging to mobile and web apps. The big difference is Pubnub publishes a ton of SDK's out the box (you can see some here). Pricing for Pubnub starts at free, with paid plans starting at $15/month on up to $399 and enterprise.

Finally, you'll probably want to know which app development platforms they support. 5 of the 7 services support PhoneGap and Appcelerator, and all Support iOS and Android.

Supported App Development Platforms

Hope this helps. If you've used any of these and have more feedback, we'd love to share it with the community! Also, If you have any others to add, please share - we'll add them to the list. Here's a link to the Google Doc Spreadsheet with all the links and comparisons.

And if you're looking to amaze your customers with customer support, just drop us an email at [email protected], or check us out at www.hipmob.com!

We are living in the age where Smart phones and Mobile Apps rule the world. In past few years, more and more global users have moved on to using mobile apps than using desktop for their light weight task such as shopping, booking cab, ordering dinner, sending email etc.

As per the needs of the users today, majority of E-commerce players have started developing mobile apps for their business, other than having a website.

Apart from having a Mobile App, integrating chat SDK in it can take your business to a new level. How?  With messaging integrated into your mobile app, users (buyer) can connect with other users (sellers) on real-time basis. This not only helps reduce time spent on user-user connection but assists in enhancing overall user experience and user engagement on your mobile apps.

Live chat is a key player that leads to increase conversions and finally the sales because as per the survey, it is recorded that customers who use a business app with live chat function are three times more inclined to make a purchase than the customers who don’t get this benefit.

Let’s make it more understandable with an example-

Every one of us is familiar with the working methodology of any ecommerce portal, which is meant for people to buy any product or services online. But in this system the major challenge product is not available physically and therefore lots of queries arises at buyer end which needs to get resolved in real time, else there are possibilities that buyer either leaves the site or finds a better application to resolve its needs.

To avoid this situation, it is necessary that your website/mobile app should have latest technology with live interaction facilities so that communication happens between buyer to seller, buyer to buyer, or seller to buyer in real time depending upon the kind of services we are offering. This way people should connect with each other to buy/sell goods or services. Now days many good ecommerce portal has its own mobile app with integrated chat SDK in it.

As per the survey, people are getting inclined more towards mobile apps which have plug and play messaging integrated in it . One of the main reasons for this is that people can connect with each other and communicate to buy/sell goods or services through chat SDK without revealing their contact number/email-id and finalise the deal through chat itself. This saves the time; resource and obviously the money spend in giving a call.

In a recent study it is found that many top retail businesses are not offering chat feature in their mobile application. If your business is into anything where your motto is to increase the revenue by getting more customers, then to gain an edge on the competition, integrating chat SDK in your business mobile app can help your business to grow. In fact, live chat is a simple way to connect with customers who finds it more convenient to spend a good deal of their money online. 

Benefits of Chat SDK

1. Fast and Easy API

The Easy API facilitates the efficient way of sharing the data. It is very easy for the developers to integrate chat SDK to your existing iOS or Android application.

2. Cross Platform Communication

Chatting SDK can be integrated in your existing app. So your users can chat on real time basis on your website or mobile application and can get instant help.

3. No External Dependency

The SDK is a complete package and it doesn’t require any other library.

4. Customizable

You can easily customize according to your business needs such as you can change the UI colour, fonts or developers can easily get into source code and modify it as per the business requirements.

Mobile chat SDK can efficiently and effortlessly be integrated into your existing app. The API is so simple and has an intuitive flow which makes the entire process very smooth and hassle-free. All you need to do is to add the SDK to your app and in flick of seconds your app users will be able to send and receive messages in your existing mobile application.

So in this age of competition and fast moving world if your business app lacks chatting feature, then it is time to get your Mobile App integrated with chat SDK.