WhatsApp is a popular messaging application that was originally developed by WhatsApp Inc., which was later acquired by Facebook. The application is built using a combination of several technologies and programming languages, including:
Erlang: Erlang is a programming language designed for building highly scalable and fault-tolerant distributed systems. WhatsApp's messaging system is built on top of the Erlang Virtual Machine (VM), which allows for efficient handling of high message volumes and ensures that messages are reliably delivered.
XMPP: WhatsApp's messaging protocol is based on the Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP), which is an open standard protocol for messaging and presence information exchange. However, WhatsApp has modified the protocol and developed its own proprietary version of XMPP.
Java: WhatsApp's server-side code is primarily built using Java, a popular programming language for building scalable web applications.
HBase: WhatsApp uses HBase, a distributed, scalable NoSQL database for storing user data.
Kafka: Kafka is a distributed streaming platform that WhatsApp uses for messaging queueing and processing.
YAWS: Yet Another Web Server (YAWS) is an Erlang-based web server that WhatsApp uses to handle its web API requests.
Overall, the development of WhatsApp involves a complex set of technologies and languages, with Erlang, XMPP, Java, HBase, Kafka, and YAWS serving as some of the primary building blocks for the messaging application.