WhatsApp is a widely-used messaging platform, with more than 1.2 billion users worldwide. It has become an essential tool for communication, both for personal and business use.
WhatsApp is powered by servers, which are responsible for ensuring that messages, calls, and other data are sent and received quickly and securely. There are several types of server software used by WhatsApp, but the most popular one is the open-source Erlang/OTP server.
Erlang/OTP was developed by Ericsson in the 1980s as a language for creating highly-scalable, fault-tolerant distributed systems. It is well-suited to applications such as messaging platforms where speed and reliability are paramount.
Erlang/OTP has been used in many large-scale systems such as Amazon Web Services and LinkedIn.
WhatsApp uses Erlang/OTP to power its messaging system. The server software handles all of the tasks related to sending and receiving messages, including encryption of messages, routing of messages between users, handling user requests for new features or updates, and more. Erlang/OTP’s scalability allows WhatsApp to handle millions of users with ease.
In addition to Erlang/OTP, WhatsApp also uses Nginx web servers for static content hosting (such as images or videos). Nginx is a high-performance web server designed to serve static content quickly and reliably.
Conclusion: WhatsApp uses the open source Erlang/OTP server as its primary server software along with Nginx web servers for static content hosting. These servers provide fast and reliable services to millions of WhatsApp users around the world.