Building a Chat Application Using Node.js: Benefits, Technologies, and Practical Examples

Despite the wide variety of desktop and mobile messenger services, web chat apps are still pertinent for online interactions. Businesses use this type of web software to communicate quickly and effectively with their users and partners.

However, third-party web chat solutions may come with security vulnerabilities and stability issues. By building a custom web chat app, you can ensure protected and reliable interactions with your users that, as a result, will enhance their satisfaction with your services.

In this article, we’ll explore the benefits of a custom web chat solution and what technologies to choose. You’ll also find a practical example of how to create a chat application using Node.js.

This article aims to help project and development leaders who are considering creating a web chat app or chatbot to improve their product’s capabilities.

Business benefits of building a custom web chat app

A web chat app is a service that provides real-time communication between two users or a group of users via a web browser. It usually allows users to exchange text, voice, and video messages, as well as share files from any device without the need to install additional software.

Businesses typically use web chat apps on their websites and/or in their applications to improve customer support, enhance lead generation strategies, and drive engagement. Despite the oversaturation of off-the-shelf solutions on the market, many businesses still prefer to invest in custom chat app development.

With a custom web chat solution, you get a range of benefits. Here, we’ve outlined the most common ones:

• Implementing advanced security measures, such as data encryption, authentication, and a secure server environment, helps protect sensitive data and ensures communication confidentiality.
• Storing data on your own or cloud servers allows you to configure servers according to your requirements and implement backup solutions to strengthen data protection and safety.
• Customizing interface and branding lets you tailor a web chat interface, taking into account the specific needs of your users and integrating design elements that will represent your brand.
• Adding unique features extends your web chat app’s functionality depending on your business’s and users’ needs — for example, storing conversation history for an unlimited period of time or supporting group calls.
• Integrating with third-party services, such as chatbots or CRM, allows you to ensure the web chat app’s compatibility with your existing IT infrastructure.
• Scaling a web chat app by leveraging cloud services and implementing WebSockets will ensure stable real-time communication and performance during high-load periods.

To achieve these benefits, it’s crucial to plan your app’s development thoughtfully and choose a technology stack wisely. In the next section, we examine the pros and cons of three popular languages for web chat development.

What programming language to choose for a web chat app   

There are many diverse programming languages used in web development, but we’ll be focusing on Node.js, Python, and C# (.NET), which are better suited for building web chat solutions. Let’s briefly compare them and determine their pros and cons.

Node.js benefits:

• Asynchronous and event-driven architecture that allows you to process a large number of simultaneous connections without blocking threads
• Huge ecosystem of packages in npm 
• Easy integration with front-end technologies like JavaScript on both the server and client side

One downside is that compared to Python and C#, Node.js shows poor performance with complex calculations, such as processing large volumes of data or machine learning.

Python benefits:

• Supports asynchronous programming via asyncio and library for WebSocket (for example, Django Channels)
• Quick and simple development process
• Multiple libraries to choose from for asynchronous tasks (for example, Twisted or aiohttp)

Python’s main disadvantage is lowered performance with a large number of connections.

.NET (C#) benefits:

• Supports asynchronous tasks via async/await. 
• Multiple built-in tools to choose from for creating high-performance applications
• High performance of a compiled language
• Excellently supports multithreading and asynchrony
• Good scalability and built-in security features
• SignalR library for easy integration of WebSocket and notifications in real time

As far as drawbacks, its configuration is more complex, and development takes more time due to the peculiarities of the .NET ecosystem compared to Node.js and Python ecosystems.

Taking into account all the pros and cons listed above, we at Apriorit prefer Node.js as it allows us to create secure, scalable, and stable web apps that meet all the expectations of our clients.

Let’s look at a practical example demonstrating how to build a chat app with Node.js.

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How to create a real-time chat application with Node.js

Here, we’ve laid out a simple example of how to build a web chat app for a better understanding of the development process. There are three main steps:

• Build a reliable authentication and authorization system
• Scale a web chat app
• Choose a technology stack

1. Build a reliable authentication and authorization system

When developing a Node.js chat application, having a reliable authentication and authorization system is crucial. A proven way to implement effective and secure authentication is by following the JSON Web Token (JWT) standard. Another required mechanism for web app security is encryption for user passwords and confidential data. 

Along with JWT and data encryption, it’s also important to implement data replication. Replication allows us to store data on multiple servers, increasing the system’s reliability and fault tolerance. When one server fails, data is available on other servers thanks to replication.

By applying the Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS) policy, we ensure resource access control on the server side and prevent unauthorized access from other sources. 

Below is an example of using JWT to implement an authentication and authorization system, as well as data encryption:

const express = require('express');
const jwt = require('jsonwebtoken');
const bcrypt = require('bcrypt');
const { User } = require('./models'); // suppose the user model is called User
// Route for user authentication and creating a JWT token
app.post('/login', async (req, res) => {
const { email, password } = req.body;
const user = await User.findOne({ where: { email } });
if (!user) {
return res.status(404).json({ message: 'User not found' });
}
const isValidPassword = await bcrypt.compare(password, user.password);
if (!isValidPassword) {
return res.status(401).json({ message: 'Incorrect password' });
}
const token = jwt.sign({ id: user.id, email: user.email }, 'secret', { expiresIn: '1h' });
res.json({ token });
});
// Secured route that requires a JWT token for access
app.get('/protected', (req, res) => {
const token = req.headers.authorization.split(' ')[1];
jwt.verify(token, 'secret', (err, decoded) => {
if (err) {
return res.status(401).json({ message: 'Invalid token' });
}
res.json({ message: 'access is allowed', user: decoded });
});
});
// An example of replication using Sequelize ORM
const Sequelize = require('sequelize');
const sequelize = new Sequelize('database', 'username', 'password', {
host: 'localhost',
dialect: 'postgres',
replication: {
read: [
{ host: 'read1.example.com', username: 'username', password: 'password' },
{ host: 'read2.example.com', username: 'username', password: 'password' },
],
write: { host: 'write.example.com', username: 'username', password: 'password' }
},
pool: {
max: 20,
min: 0,
idle: 10000
}
});
//CORS configuration
const express = require('express');
const cors = require('cors');
const app = express();
app.use(cors({
origin: 'https://trusted-domain.com',
methods: ['GET', 'POST'],
allowedHeaders: ['Content-Type', 'Authorization']
}));
app.get('/', (req, res) => {
res.send('Example route with CORS');
});

Now that you know how to secure access to a web chat app, we’ll take a look at some services you can use to scale it.

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2. Scale a web chat app

To make your Node.js chat application scalable in real time, you can use some of the following cloud services:

• Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS). If you want to use a relational database for your app, RDS will provide you with managed database services like MySQL and PostgreSQL. Moreover, RDS features automatic scalability, backup, and data high availability.
• Amazon Simple Storage Service (S3). You can use S3 to store media files sent or received via your web chat solution. S3’s advantages include high availability, reliability, and scalability.
• Amazon ElastiCache. This service provides managed data caching. You can use it for temporary storage of frequently requested data, such as chat messages or user profiles, which allows you to improve your app’s performance.

Let’s now explore which technology stacks we use on our projects for developing web solutions.

3. Choose a technology stack

To build a high-performance, scalable, and reliable Node.js web chat app, we prefer the tools below:

• To implement a server part, we leverage the Express.js framework, which has a minimalist architecture and is ideal for prompt web-based solution development.
• To provide two-way communication between client and server in real time, we prefer to use a Socket.IO library. It allows us to set up a WebSocket connection, providing instant data transfer that is essential for online chats.
• To work with a database, we opt for Sequelize ORM, which allows for interaction with relational databases, ensuring security and ease of working with data. 
• To store media files like user profile avatars or chat files, we use Amazon S3. This service provides high availability and scalability, perfect for storing and managing media files in a web chat application.

Here’s a practical example of building a real-time chat app with Node.js and Socket.IO on one of our projects:

We recommend organizing your project’s structure into appropriate directories for better code maintainability and scalability. For example, you might split the app’s components in the following way:

1. `src` (or `app`) is a root directory containing all source code.

// Code example for src/app
const express = require('express');
const http = require('http');
const socketIO = require('socket.io');
const { Sequelize, DataTypes } = require('sequelize');
const AWS = require('aws-sdk');
// Create an instance of Express.js application
const app = express();
const server = http.createServer(app);
// Initialize Socket.IO on the server
const io = socketIO(server);

2. The `config` directory stores configuration files like the database configs and AWS accounts.

const sequelize = new Sequelize('database', 'username', 'password', {
host: 'localhost',
dialect: 'postgres'
});
const s3 = new AWS.S3({
accessKeyId: 'YOUR_ACCESS_KEY_ID',
secretAccessKey: 'YOUR_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY',
region: 'YOUR_REGION'
});

3. The `models` directory stores Sequelize model descriptions.

// Code example for models
const Message = sequelize.define('Message', {
text: {
type: DataTypes.TEXT,
allowNull: false
},
sender: {
type: DataTypes.STRING,
allowNull: false
}
});
// Synchronize the model with the database
sequelize.sync();

4. The `controllers` directory is for route handlers and business logic.

// Code example for controllers
// Route for sending chat messages
app.post('/message', async (req, res) => {
const { text, sender } = req.body;
try {
const message = await Message.create({ text, sender });
// Send the message to all clients via Socket.IO
io.emit('message', message);
res.status(201).send('Message sent');
} catch (error) {
res.status(500).send('Error sending message');
}
});

5. The `middlewares` directory stores middlewares, such as authentication or CORS.

const jwt = require('jsonwebtoken');
const authenticateToken = (req, res, next) => {
const authHeader = req.headers['authorization'];
const token = authHeader && authHeader.split(' ')[1];
if (!token) {
return res.status(401).json({ success: false, message: 'Access token is missing' });
}
jwt.verify(token, process.env.JWT_SECRET, (err, user) => {
if (err) {
console.error('Error verifying token:', err);
return res.status(403).json({ success: false, message: 'Invalid token' });
}
req.user = user;
next();
});
};

6. The `services` directory stores reusable services like file upload and AWS S3. 

const sendMessage = async (text, sender, io, Message) => {
try {
// Creating message in DB
const message = await Message.create({ text, sender });
// Sending a message to all clients via Socket.IO
io.emit('message', message);
return { success: true, message: 'Message sent successfully' };
} catch (error) {
console.error('Error sending message:', error);
return { success: false, message: 'Error sending message' };
}
};

7. The `routes` directory stores Express.js routes in separate files.

// Code example for routes
// Route for uploading files to Amazon S3
app.post('/upload', (req, res) => {
// Logic for uploading file to Amazon S3
});
// Route for getting the list of files from Amazon S3
app.get('/files', (req, res) => {
// Logic for getting the list of files from Amazon S3
});

8. The `env` directory is for the .env file that stores confidential data and environment variables, such as API keys, access tokens, and database connection strings.

DB_USERNAME=username DB_PASSWORD=password 
AWS_ACCESS_KEY_ID=access_key_id 
AWS_SECRET_ACCESS_KEY=secret_access_key

This basic example demonstrates how you can create a simple, scalable, and secure web chat solution using an appropriate set of tools. However, if you want to build a top-notch web chat by employing advanced technologies, Apriorit’s team of experts in AI, security, web, and cloud development is ready to help.

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How Apriorit can help with developing a web chat app

With more than 20 years of experience in developing different software — from universal to industry-specific — and adhering to the secure software development lifecycle (SDLC), we at Apriorit can offer you a full range of services related to web development: 

• Creating a custom web chat app that meets all of your business needs and users’ demands
• Developing web applications using Node.js to ensure security and scalability
• Migrating your web solution into the cloud to make it more flexible and scalable
• Building a fully secure application to prevent potential hacking attacks and meet industry compliance regulations
• Conducting security testing to ensure your solution is protected against vulnerabilities  
• Implementing AI chatbots to improve the quality of user interactions

Moreover, we have different outsourcing options: our dedicated team, time and materials, and fixed pricing models give us the flexibility to seamlessly adapt to your workflows.

Conclusion

A custom web chat app should ensure secure and stable communication in real time, allow for integration with any necessary third-party services, and be able to extend its functionality according to current demands.

At Apriorit, we know which technologies to pick to develop high-performance, scalable, and secure web software. Our expert engineering teams are ready to help you create the exact web app you’re looking for. Alongside development, Apriorit also provides top-notch quality assurance services and offers support and maintenance assistance after software release.