How To Build Music Streaming App Like Gaana? [Features + Cost]

There is hardly an aspect of our life that remains untouched by the internet. It has changed the traditional way of doing things, including the way we consume music.

Gone are the days when we would download music in Mp3, Mp4, WMA, AAA, or any other format on our devices and would worry about limited storage space.

Thanks to audio Streaming App services and new-age digital technologies like the cloud, music has become truly limitless. There are several online music streaming services like Gaana available in the market which allow smartphone users to access their unlimited music uninterrupted from anywhere at any time.

As per recent surveys, The music streaming industry is expected to register a CAGR of nearly 17.8% from 2020 to 2027.

The rise in digital and accelerated smartphone penetration is driving this exponential growth.

And the best part is that there is ample room for new streaming services, as technologies like AR, VR, and AI are opening new growth opportunities every day.

So if you are planning to create music streaming app like Gaana, the timing could not have been better. There are ample space and opportunity for new entrants. All you need to have is the right development strategy and business model to turn your unique app idea into success in no time.

To make your task just a little bit easier, we have created this blog to highlight everything you need to know to develop a music app like Gaana. Hope this information will help you to create your own music streaming app.

What Exactly Is A Music Streaming App?

Music streaming apps completely transform the way people consume music. Instead of the traditional way of waiting until your download is finished and then listening to music, music streaming apps allow users to play music instantly.

And this comes without the need to store music on devices. The app uses cloud technology to deliver a steady stream of small packets of audio files. Concurrently, the data is played instantaneously on the user’s device by decoders. Hence, the music streaming service consists of three essential components:

• The Cloud Server: For hosting all the music files
• The Information Stream: The steady data packets delivered to user devices
• The Decoder: To transform the data stream into music

The Music streaming App is responsible for ensuring that all these elements work in complete tandem to deliver an exceptional end-user experience. As long as the end user’s internet connectivity is uninterrupted, the music too will play uninterrupted.

What Are The Types of Music Streaming Services?

There are basically two categories of Music Streaming Services:

• Radio streaming
• On-demand Music streaming

Radio Streaming

Radio streaming is also known as internet radio. It involves streaming continuous audio streams to listeners. The audio stream can neither be paused nor replayed. Ideally, radio streaming uses streaming software that converts the audio into a streaming format and transfers it to a server. The end users get their feed from the server, also referred to as the streaming server. As on of top OTT app development companies, The NineHertz provides such streaming software to simplify radio streaming and supporting those looking to start their radio streaming services.

On-Demand Streaming

On-demand streaming allows music lovers more control over what they want to listen to.

Listeners can choose from different music genres, artists, and even create their playlist.

In other words, music streaming apps offer a more personalized end-user experience.

• Popular radio streaming services: iHeartRadio, Pandora, TuneIn Radio, Slacker Radio
• Popular on-demand music streaming services: Gaana, Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, Amazon Music, Tidal, Deezer, Xbox Music, etc.

Top Features to Develop Music Streaming App Like Gaana

Now that we know what a music streaming app is, let us understand the key features involved in music streaming app development. As an app owner, you must remember that these features play a key role in driving the popularity of music apps.

• Import Songs From Folders- First and foremost, your music streaming app must be able to play songs that are already downloaded or stored on the user’s device. While this might seem mundane at first, every music lover has a list of favorite songs that they have heard over the years. Allowing them to import these songs onto the app makes for an attractive feature.
• Advanced Search: Another must-have feature, advanced search allows app users to search for music by the label, artists, genre, and more. This makes navigation smooth and easy for users to find the exact music that their ears are looking for.
• In-App Music Store- Your app must allow users to download their favorite music. This would require you to set-up a huge database of audio files and make it accessible to app users seamlessly.
• Personalization- Music taste varies from one person to another. Hence, it is essential that your app has some amazing tools in-built to help users create their own playlist, mark favorite songs, add songs to the queue, and even groove to the latest hits on loop.
• Social Media Integration- In the age of social media, people like to share what they are listening to. So adding that social media share button will make your app more likable. Also, it can act as a wonderful tool for advertising, wherein every time your users share something online, there is a default app download link for new potential app users.
• Customized UI – Way before the world was introduced to iPods and the Internet, WinAMP used to be the mp3 player of choice for music lovers. Winamp, however, wasn’t the first software-based music and video player. But what made it the most downloaded Windows applications was its rich feature-list and the hard-to-ignore easy-to-customize UI. The same rules are relevant for modern-day music apps too. Unless your music app UI allows users to add their own creativity, there is no reason to believe why they won’t be compelled to switch over to other apps.
• Offline Access for Data Saving-Average user online activity is on the rise. Today, people spend a lot of their online time scrolling through social feeds, watching videos, movies, etc. As such, there is always an inherent need for apps that save data. Allowing users to download and save songs to listen offline at a later time is always a big plus.
• Push Notifications- Clickable pop-up messages are great ways to stay connected with your app users and generate desired actions. On average there are 80+ apps installed on an active smartphone. Push notifications allow you to send alerts and messages to users even if they are not using your app. The click-through rate for push notifications is almost 2x of email. So including it in your app feature-list will pay you good dividends in the long term.
• AI-Powered- AI is transforming the app-user experience. You can use it to your app’s advantage to offer suggestions based on mood, occasions, trends, etc. Plus, you can also gain insights on user preferences, most liked artists, albums, and more for creating a more immersive experience.

Other Honorable Mentions

• Registration and Login Authentication
• Shuffling, timing and tuning options
• Lyrics
• Voice Search and Commands
• Artists Profiles

The Technology Stack to Develop Music Streaming App

The technology stack for your music app depends on the development framework you choose. A cross-platform development framework will allow you to release your app simultaneously across Android and iOS devices. The SDK and technology stack required to build the app will also be the same across all platforms.

However, this is not the case for native application development where you will have to build your app exclusively for a specific mobile OS. This would mean that the SDK and technology stack will also vary from one operating system to another.

In addition to choosing the development framework, there are other factors too that need your equal attention if not more. These include factors such as Database Storage, Releasing Prototype, UI/UX Design and Development, Model Testing, Servers etc. Let us discuss each and every one of them in detail.

Database Storage for A Music Streaming App

A music streaming app will have to handle large volumes of data in real-time. Further, you must account for traffic surge during peak hours and peak days when your app will handle the humongous volume of user requests. To do so in a seamless and frictionless manner, you will have to create a database that is not just huge but also scalable on demand.

Cloud servers fit all these requirements perfectly. They are secure, easy to manage, and scalable on-demand. In case your app becomes popular in a short time, a cloud server will give you the flexibility to scale your infrastructure without having to interrupt or remodel your services at all. Some popular cloud-based hosting platform for apps include.

GCP (Google Cloud Platform)

• Available in 19 locations
• Two hosting options: the App Engine and Computes Engine
• Containers for speed of deployment and scaling
• Cloud Trace for performance optimization
• Flexible with easy customization

AWS (Amazon Web Services)

• DynamoDB (fully-managed NoSQL database)
• High performance with maximum scalability
• Single-digit millisecond latency
• Seamless local integration
• Optimized data transfer
• Security and file encryption

Microsoft Azure

• Ease of use
• Hybrid Cloud
• Scalable in just a few clicks
• Built-in database snapshots
• Huge variety of services (VMs, Containers, Storage,)

UI/UX Design And Development of Music App Clone

Great UI/UX design humanizes digital technology, making your music app more accessible, more fun to use, and more loved. Once you have finalised your hosting platform, the next step is UI/UX design and development.

There are tons of frameworks that you can choose from to build the app UI. Some of the popular ones include React Native, Flutter, Xamarin, PhoneGap, etc.

Each framework offers some common as well as some unique set of advantages. You should choose one depending on your requirements and budget.

• Programming languages: Python, Java, etc
• Frameworks: Hadoop, Apache Storm, Hub Framework
• DevOps: Docker, Datadog, TestFlight (Application deployment and testing)

Model Testing

Testing is an essential element of any mobile application development. Again there are many tools that make testing fast and efficient. Some of these include Appium, Katalon Studio, GraphWalker, and Appium. But before choosing a test automation software it’s important to keep in mind the following factors:

• Test automation tool must accelerate collaborations
• Test automation tool must be easy to set up or configure
• Test automation tool must require minimal hand on training
• Test automation tool must seamlessly integrate with your framework and CI/CD workflow

Proxy Servers

Proxy servers are like a gateway between your app users and the internet. They also act as a firewall offering end-to-end encryption and multi-layer security to the audio files that are transmitted between the app and users over the internet. Some popular open-source software for web serving and reverse proxying that you can use include: Apache Traffic Server, NGINX, HAProxy, and Caddy.

The Team

Building music streaming app like Gaana from scratch will require an experienced team of professionals from diverse technical backgrounds. Ideally, the strength of the team can be between 10-15 members.

• Business Analyst
• Project Manager
• 3 UI/UX designer
• 2-3 Android developers
• 2-3 iOS developers
• Back-end developers
• QA engineer

How Much Money Can You Make with Gaana App Clone?

Source: https://entrackr.com/

It is a fact that 9 in 10 apps hardly make any money. But this is not the complete picture. In fact, most apps do not make money because they are either poorly designed or fail to deliver an exceptional user experience to their target audience. Rather, apps that do so, make huge amounts of money on a daily basis.

On average, the top entertainment apps make $3,090 daily. That means if you can build an OTT app that ticks all the right boxes in terms of usability, performance, and customization, there is no reason why you can’t recover your investment within the first month of the launch itself.

So How Do You Make Money From A Gaana App Clone?

Basically, there are two ways you can make money with your music app.

Advertisement in Music streaming App

The first method is advertisement wherein you can sell ad placements between audio streams and the app’s real estate to advertisers.

In-App Purchase

The other way to make money is through in-app purchases wherein you can offer a more customized user experience to your listeners via subscription such as celebrity podcasts, ad-free monthly/yearly plans, and more.

The Development Cost of Music Streaming App

The development costs will depend on a range of factors including the technology stack you choose and the people you hire to work on the project. In addition to this, the number of hours required to create all the essential elements such as Admin panel, Features, UI/UX design, etc will also determine the overall development costs.

Factors that Impact App Development Cost

• Storage
• Web Hosting
• Backend Development and Technology
• Designing

The estimated app development cost for the Gaana clone app in different countries:

Considering above mentioned rates, the app development cost for the Gaana clone app will be around $5000 – $15000 for Android platform, $15000 – $25000 for iOS operating system, whereas $5000 – $15,000 for websites. Cost varies on the basis of app functionality, features, server usage, etc.

Music App Developing In-house Vs Outsourcing

This is one dilemma that every app owner must face and find their way around. Since both, the approaches come with their advantages and disadvantages as well. To make you aware of the pros and cons of both in-house and outsourcing app development, we have listed a few of them below:

In-house App Development Pros

• Complete control over the project
• Better insights on goals, target audience, and competition
• Easy accessibility to project managers and development team
• Hire only experienced and expert professionals
• Easier to replace non-performing team members

In-house App Development Cons

• It’s difficult to retain talent as developers and designers are always in demand
• A lot of time and effort has to be invested in hiring, onboarding, team building, setting process workflows, and training
• Difficult to assign relevant work to teams following project completion
• Takes focus away from other key business activities such as marketing

Outsourcing App Development Pros

• Agile development and faster time to market
• Save money on extra office space, technology stack, and equipment.
• Bother less about development and focus more on app marketing and earnings.
• Easy to handle risks and development bottlenecks
• Scale resources on demand
• The processes and workflows are well-defined ensuring better productivity and quality of work.

Outsourcing App Development Cons

• Time zone challenges
• Data ownership and security(in some outsourcing locations)

We hope the above points will give a fair idea about outsourcing app development Vs In-house. Whether you choose to hire a team of your own or outsource your development needs to a third party, make sure that your decisions are always well informed.

When hiring a team, learn as much as you can about the individual’s experience and the details of their projects. As far as possible, stick to sites like Upwork and Linkedin when selecting potential interview candidates.

For outsourcing, choose partners that have valid proof of work and get in touch with their previous clients to learn more about work culture, quality of work, communication, and project timelines.

Should You Invest in Marketing Your Music Streaming App?

A simple straight forward answer would be ‘Yes’.

The app marketplace is overcrowded and noisy. It’s never easy for a new app to gain visibility and popularity.

• Google Play Store has over 2.56 million apps
• Apple App Store has over 2 million apps as well

Just launching your app is not a guarantee that your app will be an instant hit. You should have a strategy in place to promote your app across all platforms. Here are a few tips that will help market your app.

Tips To Market Your Gaana Clone App

Build an Online Presence

Social media platforms are ideal digital spaces to build a strong online presence for your music app. Social media pages help you to promote your apps features, user experience, as well as allow you to share important announcements, updates. And not to forget, social media is a great place to connect with your current user base and collect valuable feedback to further refine your app.

Do App Store Optimization (ASO)

Improve your apps visibility and overall conversion rate with App Store Optimization (ASO). Here are a few things that you must follow, whether you are launching your app on the app store or play store. You can check the Gaana app presence on Google Play Store.

• Use relevant keywords that your target audience is most likely to use.
  Ex: Best Offline Music App, Best Music Streaming App
• Optimize Your App Title & Description
• Use clear and good quality screenshots
• Build Backlinks
• And use social media advertising to attract traffic to your App Store page

Use Promotional Offers

Promotional offers are tried and tested ways to generate eyeballs and boost conversion rates. You can use them time and again to create buzz and increase your user base.

Ask Your Users to Share Review

Nothing works like a positive review. It boosts your online presence, improves your App store grades, and compels potential users to click on the download button. However, there is an art to eliciting reviews from your existing users.

If done abruptly, it can seem intrusive or irritating to your users. So, make sure that your users do not feel persuaded or coerced when flashing those feedback requests on their screen.

Before You Launch Your Music Streaming App

A music app is like any other digital estate on the web these days. And naturally, it must go through some checks and balances to be deemed appropriate for launch by the app marketplaces.

Secure Public Performance Rights

The first and foremost for any music app is the Public Performance Rights. It is part of the copyright law and secures payment for music’s composer/lyricist when you stream their content. Public Performance Rights change with national borders. To avoid any future discrepancies, it is always wise to approach the respective agencies and secure the public performance rights for the region.

Prepare A Compelling Sales Pitch

There are tons of popular music streaming apps and they are already in agreement with performance rights management companies like ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC. You need to give them a very strong reason to work with your streaming service.

Conclusion

We have covered almost all the important elements of developing a music app like Gaana. However, the information we have covered will offer you only an overview of the essential building blocks. The execution part is still highly complex and full of challenges.

Unless you are an expert in app development, it is always wise to hire live streaming app developer who can guide you through the entire process. There are tons of live-streaming app development companies/developers that offer best live streaming apps development services like video streaming, audio streaming, music streaming, podcast app development, etc. Keeping project requirements in mind, consider approaching the ideal companion that can offer you a fair estimate of the development cost and time easily. All the best!