What Does It Take (Cost & Resources) to Build a Slack-Like App?

🏷️ General
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I have no support/technical question and have seen the support category. (Be aware that direct support questions will be deleted.)

on

Which general topic do you have

Hi everyone,

I’m researching what it would realistically take to build a team communication app similar to Slack, and I’d appreciate some practical insights before I move forward.

The product would include real-time messaging, channels, file sharing, search, notifications, and possibly voice/video in later phases. My main concern right now is understanding the scope in terms of cost, time, and team requirements.

I’m hoping to get clarity on:

  1. How large of a development team would typically be required?

  2. Roughly how long would it take to build an MVP?

  3. What are the biggest cost drivers (infrastructure, storage, real-time servers, etc.)?

  4. Is it more cost-effective to use a third-party chat API/SDK such as MirrorFly, Sendbird, or Trueconf instead of building everything in-house?

  5. What ongoing operational costs should I expect as user numbers grow?

If anyone has built or worked on similar products, I’d really value your perspective on budgeting, infrastructure planning, and scaling expenses.

Thanks in advance for sharing your experience!

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Hi, why dont you use GitHub - nextcloud/spreed: 🗨️ Nextcloud Talk – chat, video & audio calls for Nextcloud and/or build on it?

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Or contribute to it :slight_smile:

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Talk is similar to Slack, but I suspect what you want is the exact same thing, just open source and free. :wink: