Building a WhatsApp Web Clone with MERN Stack

Abstract

WhatsApp Web is a web-based messaging application which is being used by billions of people on their laptops or desktop computers. This web application has similar features to the WhatsApp mobile version. By using this web application, users can easily send and receive messages, which will indeed make the communication fast and efficient. This paper will focus on building a replica of WhatsApp Web using the MERN stack, where M stands for MongoDB, which is a document-based NoSQL database; E stands for Express.js, which is a lightweight framework for Node.js which simplifies backend development; R is for React.js, which is being used for the responsive user interface; and N stands for Node.js, which is being used for server-side execution of JavaScript, which provides real-time updates as well as better performance. By using MERN, programmers can easily create a user-friendly application. The application, which is being made using MERN, can handle a large user base as well as a large volume of data, which will benefit numerous people. The main differentiator of the clone and the original WhatsApp Web application is that in the original WhatsApp Web application, individuals needed to have a phone number in order to use the mobile version of WhatsApp, and then from there, they needed to scan the QR code which was present on the WhatsApp Web application in order to log in to the web version of the application. However, its clone has removed this need, as now the login process will be done from Gmail rather than from the mobile phone.