Before a decade you needed a Television or access to pirated internet channels to watch your favorite football match from work. The tables have turned now. With the advent of Live Streaming Apps, there is a dimensional shift in how consumers consumed their favorite content.

Video streaming apps have become the face of consuming media today. As per a survey, the global live streaming market is predicted to reach a whopping 223.98 billion USD by 2028. The sole reason behind the same being more and more channels creating their independent streaming services.

To ease your confusion on how these streaming apps add value to their consumer’s lives, we decided to bring you this dedicated read. This blog offers an insight into the cost and features of a video on-demand app development. So, let’s begin!

What is a Live Streaming App?

A live-streaming app allows its users to simultaneously record and broadcast videos. Many dedicated platforms and their extensive use made by consumers have increased the total number of live-streaming apps by folds.

In addition to this, the younger crowd and millennials are overtaking the conventional media outlets. Live streaming apps give a chance to users to enjoy their favorite music, videos, TV series, and movies as and when they want to. Here are different types of live video streaming apps that one can explore.

Different Types of Live Streaming Apps

Live streaming app development gives media operators a chance to reach a huge chunk of an audience on digital marketplaces. Here are the different types of video streaming apps that you can develop.

Live Content Sharing Apps

Using the same a user can send live or recorded videos and audio with the app. The video you have captured will be compressed into smaller parts, encoded, and send using the content delivery network. Many social giants such as Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and more offer this facility.

Over the Top Apps or OTT Platforms

OTT apps have become the go-to thing for consumers to watch their favorite live shows, movies, and more. To access these apps, one has to buy monthly, quarterly, or yearly subscriptions and stream from any time and anywhere. 

These platforms are highly dependent on the type of internet service you use and offer the best quality with high-speed connectivity. Netflix, Hotstar+Disney, and Amazon Prime Video are some great examples of the same.

On-Demand Video Streaming Apps

These apps offer you uploaded videos that are pre-recorded and compiled before they were presented to the users. Here, the file is made available via a mobile app or webpage by uploading the same on a server. Depending on the app a user can either watch the video via CDN or download that particular video file on their device. With the success of services like Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, on-demand app development has received a series of high investments. 

Live Video Conferencing Apps

Since the pandemic hit every city in the world, video conferring apps have received an overwhelming adaptation. Every business has been forced to use the same for efficient and daily communication. These apps allow you to communicate virtually using your camera and microphone with almost anyone irrespective of their location. 

These have highly contributed to establishing the concept of remote working for many employees around different industries. Around the world, different companies also use these apps for webinars, interviews, product demos, training, and more. Some of the renowned apps in this segment include Skype, Zoom, GoToMeeting, and more. 

Audio Streaming Apps

You will get this as a result if your remove all the video streaming features from your preceding apps. With the evident rise in podcasts, talk shows, and music being an evergreen phenomenon, the audio streaming platforms have multiplied in folds. These apps offer high-quality audio quality that is transmitted using the internet in real-time. Apple Music, Pandora, and Spotify are the most successful apps that have made it huge in this category.

How to Build a Live Video Streaming App

Here is a stepwise guide to building a live video streaming app. 

Defining your Niche

Whom do you want to build an app for? What does the user segment expect from your services? These are the foremost questions that you should find an answer to. This process would help you with the following:

• Define a roadmap to your goal.
• Identify the challenges that will help you achieve your goal.
• Learn what your competitors are offering and how you can make it better.
• Calculate the overall budget i.e. from inception to launch.
• Tentative time to build your application.

Selecting your Platform

Live video streaming app development consists of these three primary functionalities i.e. Hosting, storing, and streaming video data. You might be planning to choose the cheapest provider, but you can end up compromising your video’s quality and other services. Also in addition to your consumer base, your app can fail to handle the high traffic. In this highly competitive market users prone to receiving quality services won’t tolerate any glitches with streaming. 

Choosing the Right Content Delivery Network (CDN)

Having the right CDN offers perfect corroboration with your app’s performance and availability. A CDN is of prime importance if you want to develop a scalable application. While development one may think of it as an unworthy investment but you need to think ahead of time here. The amount you pay for a CDN will pay off with time. 

It’s hard to fix the tech stack right from the start of your app’s development process. It can work well the other way around, you can choose your tech stack based on the problems your app solves.

Create an Engaging UI/UX

This is the area that the users are going to interact with when they use your app. A video streaming app has the maximum interaction with a user and so your app should possess an intuitive UI/UX. You can offer a simplistic UI where a user can easily map the closest functions to accessing a video. 

Develop & Test your MVP

You can get overwhelmed with the number of ideas that you want to inculcate in your app right from the start. But that wouldn’t be the right thing to do until you learn your user’s response to your app. Hence, we recommend you create an app to test the waters, observe the response, and make future decisions based on the same.

Features of Live Video Streaming App

Signup/Login

The first page of your app would be for the registration of new users on your platform. Your app should offer multiple options for logging into the app. Some of the quick methods include social media and OTP logins. 

User Onboarding

Once a user signups your app should seek the preferences and permissions you need for them to use your app at its highest efficiency. You can also mark the features via arrows with instructions describing the user flow. Hints and tips always play a hand in making a user familiar with your application. 

Personification

Every user is trying your app to consume or share content but they each have their preferences. You will have to add algorithms that study what specific content is of value to a user. Studying their previous searches the app should recommend videos that increases a user’s screen time. 

Streaming Quality

Going by the traditional standards, a video app should offer videos in 4 qualities i.e. high, medium, low, and auto. Auto is the default quality that one would start their video with. Depending on the quality of the network connection a user would be able to adjust the video quality.

Data Analytics

Data analytics plays a crucial role in increase the user retention rate. This feature develops pie charts, graphs, and other real-time statistics based on a user’s interactions with your app. It helps learn a user’s interest and strategizes the ads and videos to recommend. This data is extremely essential as it allows the company to try different monetization techniques with the users. Using data services such as Big Data you can learn various user patterns; that can be worked upon to improve your app’s services. 

Advanced Search

An advanced search feature adds convenience to a user’s browsing activity. Platforms like Netflix offer the option of choosing their favorite films or TV series based on different genres. This helps a user browse through the different content present on your platform and choose for themselves. 

Push Notifications

Push notifications play a significant role for your app by making the user aware of the new releases or updates on your platform. This feature is used to keep a user hooked to your services and increase your engagement rate.

Payment Gateways

If you use a subscription model to monetize your app you will surely need a secure payment gateway to take care of all the payments. This feature should be developed with utmost care as it will contain all the confidential details of your clients.

Cost of Creating a Live Streaming App

The cost of developing a live streaming app is dependent on many variables. The primary being the location of the mobile app development company and the complexity of the app. Another factor that can play a huge role in your overall costing is the tech stack that you use to develop your applications. 

If you wish to create two separate applications for Android and iOS, it will consume more time as it requires programming and testing two separate codebases. Hence, double the pricing. 

But don’t worry, if you want two separate mobile apps at a lower cost and in quick time, you can opt for cross-platform app development. A tech stack that is being highly promoted by mobile app development services. This will save you tons of time and also a lot of money.

To give you a fair idea of what you should plan in terms of your app’s budget, we have curated a tentative price range for your next video on-demand app development project

Android App Development: 7,000 USD – 55,000 USD

iOS App Development: 5,000 USD – 45,000 USD

Cross-Platform App Development: 6,000 USD – 40,000 USD

Progressive Web App Development: 5,000 USD – 50,000 USD

Frequently Asked Questions

How much time does it take to build a live video streaming app?

It depends on the scope of the project and its complexity. Large projects take a longer time to launch than small and easy ones.

How can I finalize the necessary features for a live streaming app?

There are many features that you can offer with a video streaming app. But you can discuss the same with our experts and only include the ones that are necessary for your application.

Is it necessary to conduct competition analysis?

Your competitors are your best teachers. With competitor research, you can avoid the mistakes that they made and learn what the consumers are expecting from them. As a new player in the market, you can use the distinguishing features to lure clients to use your app.

How does a CDN work?

CDN is a network of servers that delivers the desired content. CDN is dispersed over a geographical region that stores your web page content. When a user demands a particular content, the redirects the user’s request to the nearest CDN server and delivers the cached content.

Are video streaming apps the future of the video content world?

Yes, due to increased awareness of the privacy and high revenue that these platforms offer, more and more content creators are turning their eyes towards established video streaming platforms to share their content.