Realtime Chat App with React, Node.js, Socket.io | MERN Stack Messenger Clone

Introduction

Introduction

In this tutorial, we will build a chat application using React, Node.js, MongoDB, and Socket.IO. Our application will fetch previous conversations from the database, allow users to click on a conversation to fetch all its messages, and enable instant messaging using Socket.IO.

The chat app supports real-time communication, and when opened in multiple tabs, messages will appear instantly across all tabs.

This project serves as an excellent introduction to real-time applications, commonly found in major projects today. We use the same backend API and design from our previous social media app tutorial series.

Setting Up the Project

File and Folder Structure

First, we structure our project into two main folders:

• api for the Node.js and MongoDB backend
• client for the React frontend

We initialize our backend with models and routes for users and posts, reflecting a basic social media application's backend features.

If you don’t have these folders, download them from my GitHub repository in the my-social-app branch. After downloading, install the dependencies using: