Top 10 Web Services To Build Your Own Video Calling App

With the enhancement in smartphone technology, WebRTC based Video calling mobile apps have gained massive popularity over the past recent years.

There are several unique chat applications available for both iPhones and Android devices and still more keeps coming up. Skype, Whatsapp, Hike, Google Duo, Hangouts, have been some of the most popular as well as inspirational chat applications which are daily communication channels for millions of people.

In one of their surveys about video chat usage The NPD Group revealed that52 percent of smartphone users aged 18-34 now use their smartphones to make video calls.

With this growing trend and demand for new live chat applications, it is never too late to utilize the concept of connecting users over a video chat and innovate a new business strategy around it.

With this article, The Brihaspati Infotech (a professional mobile development team) shares with you the top 10 web services you can use to develop your own video calling mobile app.

Some WebRTC Theory

WebRTC - the essence of these live chat applications is an open-source protocol that is used to establish a P2P connection between two devices over an internet connection for streaming audio and video data in real time. The web is full of various publicly available open-source as well as licensed web services for setting up live video chats which utilize WebRTC.

Developers can leverage the P2P online connection capabilities of these WebRTC based web services to develop applications that stream audio and video data in real-time.

Top 10 web services to build your own Video calling mobile app

Note: This list is not curated to promote any live chat web service in any way, nor these services are listed in any specific order of priority. The top 10 picks are based on our personal experience with various WebRTC web services.

1. Agora

Agora is a powerful real-time communication service provider that is providing SDKs and APIs of its services which can be used by the developers to build highly robust voice and video call chat applications.

The service has been a preferred choice for several renowned partners such as Hike, Meet.me, Talk space and in its most recent partnership, they have struck a deal with Xiaomi as their VOIP based voice and video call technology.

Their key USP includes HD voice and video calling ability that utilizes the VOIP route to establish a connection between devices. Their pricing model is also built around the call quality with voice calls starting as low as $0.99 per 1000 minutes and HD video calls >720P being charged at $14.99 per 1000 minutes.

Top Features Includes:

1. Easy to set up with thoroughly documented APIs
2. Over 80 data centers around the globe
3. Low data latency - as low as 0.2 seconds
4. Support for up to 17 participants in a video call
5. Cross-platform support for Native mobile apps as well as websites.
6. Helpful and highly active support team

2. Twilio

With pricing plans starting as lows as $0.01 per minute, Twilio programmable API’s is yet another PAAS service provider that provides distinct API to set up text, voice, and video calls.

Twilio had done a great work on its engagement cloud that provides engagement APIs for the entire customer journey. This includes individual as well as group calling, the ability to record the calls, Screen sharing, low latency media routing and many more.

These can be used by developers to develop a highly interactive video chat applications for any use case.

Top Features:

1. Well documented API’s for voice, video and messaging
2. Highly secure
3. Interactive visual builder to design, develop and deploy communication workflows
4. Support for web browser through an extension to support cross-platform calling.
5. Competitive pricing

3. Quickblox

Quickblox utilizes XMPP based chat connections and offers its services that are metered by usage of the community (per second). Quickblox has come a long way ahead of being an underdog and is now a highly professional chat web service. Customers can also get access to detailed guides for all compatible platforms and active technical support channels.

Top Features:

1. Best suited to small and medium-sized business. Enterprise level plans can cost as much as $30000 per year.
2. Provides access to core files and can be completely customized as per project needs.
3. Chat app can support up to 1000 group members.
4. Useful code samples for different technologies that cut down project initialization time.
5. Enterprise level security.

4. Sinch

Cost-effective would be an understatement for the VOIP based Sinch. With video quality rates as low as $0.003 per minute, Sinch is one of the most affordable Video calling SDK solutions in the market. On top of that, they provide 2500 free calling minutes every month.

Driven by simplicity, they provide feature-rich yet simplistic SDKs for IOS, Android and web applications which are easy to set up. Their effective SDKs have landed them into high profile partnerships with - Truecaller, Tango, Uber, and others.

Top Features:

1. Highly effective flash voice verification service (currently used by Truecaller)
2. Default push notifications
3. Automatic call routing based on lowest latency
4. 99.95% uptime.
5. Thoroughly documented APIs

5. TokBox

The winner of 2013 “Best WebRTC Tool”, Tokbox provides a host of features to match up to its competitors. Some of these include one to one and group video calls, screen sharing, as well as call recording. With prices starting from a base price of $9.99 per month, the services are expectedly consistent. However, it’s pricing makes it a tad costlier for startups.

Top Features:

1. Low latency and supports inter device communication
2. Highly secure with HIPAA and BAA compliance.
3. Highly effective conference call ability
4. HD call and video recording

6. Gruveo

Gruveo is primarily a video call service provider that empowers web based video chats without any logins or signups. Users can simply create a session, share the link and engage in a video chat.

This open ended yet securely encrypted conversation is nothing but a marketing strategy from Gruveo to showcase the abilities of it’s video chat functionalities which are available as full fledged SDK’s for IOS, Android and the Web. With millions of users around the globe using Gruveo with ease, there is less doubt about its capabilities to handle video chats.

Top Features:

1. Cross platform and device compatible
2. Default support for HD quality media streaming
3. Seamless group calling with default support for join call session
4. Support screen sharing
5. Marketer’s delight with callers location, referral website and device info is shown to the call receiver.

7. Voxeet

HD video with 3d surround sound in your video calls - when was the last time did you hear that? This is what voxeet claims to bring to the table. Focused on providing high quality audio and video experience during your video calls, Voxeet web services have caused a major disruption in the WebRTC industry.

In addition to this, Voxeet provides a whole suit of API’s that can suit multiple industries and a wide range of target audience. While basic video calling rates are as low as $0.00375 per minute, Voxeet provides a host of add-on services like broadcasting, call recording, speech to text transcription and more.

Top Features:

1. Abundant features to suit multiple business niche
2. Personalized support and technical assistance services
3. Real time translation and speech to text transcription services for your recorded calls
4. Screen Sharing ability
5. Complete UX toolkit to help developers get started with a fully functional video calling app in minutes.

8. Vsee

Ideally built as a video calling solution for telemedicine platforms, Vsee video calling SDK can also be used to create an effective video chat app. Vsee is Hipaa compliant and brings its API brings a host of features such as screen sharing, waiting room and triage centers.

These features are not only ideal just for a virtual clinic portal but can also be customized and implemented for any business model that demands one on one video conference.

Top Features:

1. A basic video calling service with a thoroughly documented API
2. Not much information available about the pricing plans
3. Most suitable for telemedicine business

9. EasyRTC

If you are looking to implement your own video chat service which will be hosted on a personal server, then EasyRTC can be a great choice. It is an open source WebRTC service that provides you a highly detailed API to implement real time communication including audio, video and file sharing capabilities.

It is more of a refined version of the WebRTC services that is much more detailed and well documented. Above all, it is completely free of cost.

Top Features:

1. Great working samples to start with a working application.
2. Highly active developer community
3. Supports video, audio and data sharing
4. Fully open source and free of cost, but you will need to purchase and maintain your own web server.

10. Contus Fly

Contus Fly is a product offered by its parent company that excels in delivering a host of web solutions including Video on demand, chatbots, Mcommerce and more. Contus fly offers a highly robust video chat solution SDK that can be completely customized and white labeled based upon business needs.

The SDK also provides the feature to host the RTC services on Contus cloud or on your personal server. It features a plethora of capabilities through its chat options which can be found in popular chat applications.

Top Features:

1. Supports screen sharing, file transfer, group chat, in call messaging.
2. Cross browser and cross platform compatible
3. XMPP/Ejabbered based communication channel with Amazon S3 bucket powered media management
4. Out of the box working application with source code which can be white labelled
5. Effective support channel and thoroughly documented APIs

Conclusion

As you might have noticed, that the key features provided by most of these companies in our list are more or less the same. The key difference or should we say the decisive factor for choosing any of these vendors solely depends upon your usage, the quality of services provided by these applications and your business model.

Once you are ready with your choice, all you need is to hire a professional and experienced mobile application development company to get your app developed.

What are your thoughts about our list of video calling web services for mobile apps? Let us know in the comment section below.

Find more top mobile app development companies worldwide on AppFutura.