How to Make Really Secure Messaging App Similar to Signal?

There are a lot of development stages to make a really secure chat application. You should start with understanding how do messengers work.

Chat app developers work by two types of protocol:

1. HTTP + Push Notifications. This means the way of work where you’re notified when you get a message, and the server responds back to you when you open an app.

2. XMPP with socket-based chat. This protocol works by constant user connection to the server. And the user automatically moves to the offline mode when the connection is lost. Extensive Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) is more common-used.

How to make your messaging app secure?

The most popular way to make your chat app secure is end-to-end encryption. Let’s see how does it work. The user sends a message, and it gets encoded on the user’s device. Then it’s transferred to the server, which brings it to the recipient. And only in recipient’s device, this message gets encoded. This means that only conversation members can see decoded messages.

So, what’s the list of features an MVP secure messenger must have? More about each of these features here: https://themindstudios.com/blog/how-to-make-a-secure-chat-app-like-signal/

• Onboarding feature
• Maintenance/project setup feature
• Authorization feature
• Settings feature
• Profile
• Status/Invite/Privacy/Notifications/About feature
• Linked Devices
• Sockets/Real-time feature
• Signal Protocol Integration

In conclusion, let's estimate time for each of development stages:

• Business analysis and specification — up from 40 hours
• UI & UX design — up from 80 h
• iOS client app — 130+ hours for MVP
• Backend development — up from 400 hours
• Testing — roughly around 200 hours

There is the main information you should now to develop a secret messenger application. What do you think about it?