Tinder Tech Stack: How to Build Such App?

Dating apps are extremely popular these days. As of July 2016, Tinder had over 11 millions of downloads and Badoo — over 6 million. Impressive, isn’t it? Yet, it’s possible for you to achieve the same success.

 

If you want to create a dating app, you will need to use some general and specific tech tools. Let’s review common features and dating app tech stack for their implementation!

 

Authorization

 

Authorization is a common feature of any app that stores user data and allows users creating personal profiles. Despite there are some anonymous dating apps that may not require users to sign up, we are going review a classic case.

 

Also, the first interaction with your app happens on this screen. Needless to say how important it is to leave a good first impression, right? That’s why everything should be perfect.

 

 

 

First of all, make sure your app supports oAuth. This is the open authorization framework that allows transferring personal user data from external sources to your dating app.

 

To understand what I’m talking about, think of “Sign up with Facebook/Twitter/Instagram” button. This will let your users omit the long and complicated authorization process.

 

It may raise some security concerns, yet, oAuth doesn’t provide permission to store, send or remember the password and login of users’ social media accounts to any third parties. That’s it: their data remains secure!

 

 

Secondly, you can use Firebase Authentication SDK during your dating app development. With its help you can manually integrate several sign-in methods, including via social networks, email, phone number and other.

 

 

User Profiles

 

User profiles in a dating app are particularly important. In such apps profiles become an essential source of information about each other. Actually, without profiles it would be impossible to find a perfect match!

 

So what about the tech tips?

 

If there are user profiles, there must be some personal data as well. If there is some personal data, there is a need to store it somewhere, right? That’s when you will need to integrate a database into your app.

We don’t know for sure what database is in the technology stack behind Tinder but it doesn’t actually matter. The point is that you should have one. For this purpose you can use Mongo DB, for example.

 

 

Secondly, since we are operating with personal data, you should take care of safety as well. To protect your users you can:

 

• Implement SSL certificates and HTTPS connections for advanced security.
• Establish a two-step verification process. For this purpose you may ask the user to sign up with email and confirm it with a mobile number.
• Generally, make sure that you’ve covered everything from the OWASP Top 10 List.

 

Geolocation

 

If you want to build a dating app that will be able to successfully compete in the global market, geolocation is a must-have for your project.

 

 

A truly good dating app helps to connect lonely hearts and create happy couples. However, it will be difficult to achieve if your app just randomly connects people from all over the world. To get the highest efficiency, you should link people that are located close to each other.

 

To implement geolocation services in your Tinder clone app, use Core Location Framework for iOS or Android SDK Class for devices with this operating system.

 

Matching Algorithms

 

Let’s talk about the most mysterious part of your dating app tech stack. Basically, there are two options.

 

Your application can match people randomly. Yet, your users will be annoyed if proposed matches won’t fit their interests and expectations and this is definitely not what you want and need.

 

 

The more clever option is to implement matching algorithms in your app so as every user can get what he wants. To achieve this, you can split the “attractiveness” into 3 parameters:

 

1. Physical attractiveness that includes both your profile photos and such characteristics as height, weight, physique and so on.
2. Psychological compatibility which takes into account temperament, character traits, lifestyle etc.
3. Compatibility of interests that helps to match people according to their hobbies, values, common experiences and personal preferences (like music, for example).

 

To make this whole system work you will have to implement machine learning algorithms during your dating app development. With their help your app will be able to analyze user behavior and offer them matches that really suit 3 parameters mentioned above.

 

Chat

 

Yet, even the best matchmaking algorithms can’t create a loving couple from strangers. To melt the ice and make people fall in love communication is needed. So provide it in your app!

 

So as to make interactions between people even more engaging, you can enhance the chat feature with additional functionality: stickers, video calls, gifs, possibility to send photos, audio or video messages etc. Tinder tech stack includes some special messaging tools too.

 

What can we suggest you? Take a look:

 

• To build a dating app with a great chat feature, you can use Twilio, Firebase or Sendbird SDKs. These tools will provide you with all needed functionality and will help your app to achieve the highest level of performance.
• Additionally, if you decide to enhance the chat with video communications, ooVoo and TokBox SDKs are your best helpers in this field.

 

Push Notifications

 

Last but not least. If you look at the technology stack behind Tinder (or any other cool app) there definitely will be SDKs that are used to implement push notifications.

 

This feature is responsible for retargeting and engaging users with your dating application. By notifying users about new messages in chat or matches, you will encourage them to open your app more frequently.

 

Therefore, your dating app tech stack can be enriched with Pushbots, OneSignal or Firebase SDK.

 

Payment Options

 

Finally, depending on your monetization model, you may need to integrate some paid features into your app. For example, you additional sticker packs or functionality for the chat as well as an unlimited number of ongoing communications may be the benefits that you will provide for a fee.

 

 

To integrate in-app purchases, you can use In-App Billing API for Android or StoreKit Framework for iOS.

 

Takeaways

 

Dating app development isn’t as difficult as it may seem if you use tech tools from this article. They will make the development process flow faster and smoother, and eventually you will achieve better results. Don’t hesitate to use them, hope it helps!