Consider These Features And Cost Components Build an App Like TikTok
TikTok is so popular in many parts of the world that just a government ban or few hours of technical issues can cause a big uproar among the self-publishing content makers and millions of millennials and teenagers who are addicted to this platform. If Facebook is heading to become a digital continent, TikTok is already a small digital nation of small-town teens and young entertainers.
Very recently, the carpet ban on TikTok and several Chinese apps by Indian government created great despair among these people for whom TikTok is a lifestyle and a digital presence of their unique creativity. Definitely such moves, on the other hand, created huge opportunities for the app developers as well. As Ciaran Stone of SquareRoot Solutions pointed out, “the kind of popularity TikTok had must create a vacuum for others to fill in.”
Do you want to build a popular app like TikTok and don’t know where to start from? Well, here we are going to explain the key features and the cost components that you need to consider while building an app similar to TikTok. But let’s start from the very basics and spare a few lines on what TikTok does and how it functions.
What TikTok is All About and How it Works?
TikTok is an entertainment app with social media features to allow users to publish their self-styled songs, self-recorded dance moves and interesting and funny videos. Besides sharing original user-generated content, TikTok users can also connect to other users and interact. Even if a user is not creative enough or wants to stay away from publishing, he can at least enjoy contents created and published by others.
Key Features for Your New App like Tik-Tok
TikTok is unique, and so your app should not blindly follow TikTok but offer something unique and exceptional through the creative mix. But that requires knowing the key features that play a crucial part in shaping the user experience of TikTok. 
Login Screen
It’s the basic app screen to make a user login or register by filling forms or by providing social credentials.
User Interface and Navigation
Now, as for accommodating content in the user interface, you can allow users to scroll the video contents. The tents from friends should be given a priority in the feed, just like any other social media app.
Comments and Reactions
On TikTok, the number of hearts denotes the popularity of the video content. Just by giving a heart reaction, one can also tell the app about preference, and next time similar videos and publishers will be shown. Comments allow users to interact directly by saying something.
Face Filters and Video Effects
TikTok offers a lot of video effects for the content publishers, including slow motion, reverse effect, zoom, flash and face filters.
Video Sharing
TikTok allows you to share videos across other channels including Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Whatsapp, Messenger and through the old email account.
Sound Editing
You can edit the video sound and can upload your voice-over sound and other sound effects to the videos.
Push Notification
The app informs users about in-app activities like likes, tags, and followers through push notifications.
Duet Recording
A user besides adding his or her own voice over to a video, can also allow other users to sing along or add voice over for a duet effect.
Settings
Settings of the app will allow users to make changes in profile, specify preferences for in-app features and approach help centre.
Video Editing
TikTok allows users to add their video contents by using various filters, animations, stickers, and several visual tweaks.
Technology Stack for Developing an App like TikTok
Apart from using the regular technology stack for content publication and social media features, TikTok uses artificial intelligence (AI) technology for its algorithm and object as well as image recognition features. Let’s look at the tech stack for building an app like TikTok.
- Cloud storage solutions like Amazon S3 or Google cloud storage.
- For Android Kotlin or Java language
- For iOS Swift language
- For hybrid app React or Flutter or Xamarin
- Content delivery networks (CDN)
- Database technologies like Cassandra
- GWT to streamline coding output
- Transcoding of video and audio files
- Datastax for database management
- Digital payment solutions such as e-wallet and PayPal
The Design, Development, and Other Experts for Project
For the app development project, you require the following exerts.
- iOS, Android and cross-platform app developer
- Mobile app UI/UX designers
- Database experts
- QA and testing experts
- Front-end and back-end developers
- Sales and marketing team
- Product manager
- Delivery expert
Estimating the Tough Cost of Developing an App like TikTok
Building an app like TikTok has some cost components that cannot be done away with. The cost factor in building an app similar to Tik-Tok is dependent on the chosen technology stack, key features, required resources, chosen platforms and above all, the cost of hiring developers and other experts.
Considering the cost challenges at the initial stage, it is recommended to go for a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) app development approach. This will help to build the app faster while keeping options open for value additions based on user feedback.
Conclusion
TikTok is already a hugely successful app with a unique approach to making a social media platform for user-generated content. It is important to make your presence felt with something unique over and above the standard features and UX attributes of TikTok we discussed above.
