Scalable chat app architecture: How to get it right the first time

Chat applications have become an integral part of communication, connecting distributed workers, providing customer service, and bringing together online communities. The architecture of a chat app plays a crucial role in ensuring its reliability and scalability. Key considerations for chat app architecture include the ability to scale, fault tolerance, latency and global reach, message synchronization and queuing, transport mode, and implementing push notifications. The structure of chat architecture typically follows a client-service pattern with seven core components: application server, load balancer, streaming event manager, user authentication and user manager, presence service, media store, and database. There are three main options for delivering realtime chat applications: building everything in-house, integrating proven third-party tools, or using a white-label chat platform. Ably offers a global infrastructure with pub-sub architecture, rich integrations, and tutorials to build scalable chat applications.