Development Cost Of An App Like Instagram
The popularity of the photo-sharing phenomenon has tremendously grown over the years and with it the demand for engaging social media platforms. Instagram with the love of millions of users has evolved as a powerful marketing tool with its exemplary standards since inception and conquered the photo-sharing platforms with its growth tangent.
With continuously growing demands, stunning success and high revenue rates often instil thoughts of making an app with such a demand ratio. If you are pondering upon the cost and time it will take, then you are at the right place.
To estimate the cost, we need to be clear about the features and functions of Instagram we should have in our clone and the technology stack required.
Technology Stack Of Instagram
The technological stack of Instagram different platforms and services is given below:
For Android Applications
l Networking: Retrofit2, OkHttp 3
l Language: Kotlin
For iOS Applications
l Networking: Alamofire
l Language: Swift
Back-end Stack
l Framework: Express 4
l Language: Node.js
l API documentation: Swagger
l Messaging:Socket.io
Services
l Geo-location: Google-maps
l Email: Elastic emails
l Storage: Amazon S3
l Push notifications: FCM
DevOps
l Load balancer: HAProxy
l Javascript testing framework: Jest
l Server configuration: Fabric
l Exception monitoring: Senty
Basic features of Instagram and development time for them
User experience is important for retaining your existing users and driving new ones. So, a good UX/UI design delivers a better impact on the users with technically complicated features under the sheath of harmony with their design. We focus on the basic features to give you a complete understanding of an overall estimate of the development cost and time it might take.
#Account Authorization
For your user-oriented application, you should offer at least these two ways of account authorization
l Creating an account with a phone number
l Use a social media account to Sign in
Along with this, an option for retrieving lost passwords via mail, registered number, or social media account used.
The time required: 65-70 hours
#Creating and Editing profile
Editing, adding, and customizing the profile information should be the next feature of your Instagram clone. The users demand this feature to be highly interactive. It has the client and server interaction in the back-end.
The time required: 48-52 hours
# Upload photos and videos
You must ensure that the photo and video sharing options are well-designed to withstand the competitive market.
The time required: 70-85 hours
# Integrated Messaging Platform
For real-time messaging, push notifications are the main component. On the back-end, we generally use RESTful API on HTTP instead of permanent socket connections preventing the server from getting overloaded. For enabling notifications we use GCM or APN and connect with the server.
The time required: 130-150 hours
#Some additional settings
Allow your users to adjust the application features such as private mode, change language, enable/disable notifications.
The time required: 90-120 hours
#Allow photo editing
Image editing and modification is a must-have essential feature of any photo-sharing application. In the backend, you can either develop your filters or use the standard files.
The time required: 60-70 hours
# Add Geo-location
You must add a feature where the users can update their location in their uploads. For android, it can be done using map services from map view class and a certain class of android. location package. For iOS, you can use the CLLocationManager class.
The time required: 24-30 hours
# Linking with Social media
Instagram does not run in isolation. Your users will want to interact with each other by sharing media files and other content. You must make provisions in your clone app. Establish a connection with other platforms by using third-parties like OAuth.
The time required: 8-10 hours
#Search Feature
It is a convenient feature for the users to connect with other users and look for what is trending.
The time required: 60-70 hours
Some Additional Costs
You may face some additional expenses in the development process such as
Project startup and database architecture: 150 hours
Design and Admin panel (UX/UI design):108 hours and 155 hours
Cloud computing and testing services may even be added.
The Total Development Cost
As we have calculated the time required to develop our clone, let’s estimate the total cost required. Adding all the features mentioned we have to invest around 1190 + hours for each platform. The development cost
For Android(including backend) :$59,300 (app.)
For iOS ( including backend ) : $59,000 (app.)
Admin Panel :$7,790 (app.)
Designing (one platform) :$5,500 (app.)
Instagram gained popularity worldwide because of its good performance, better interface, and amazing features. To make a similar app you have to trudge along the route of development, maintain it, and never stop evolving.