Hosts can manage all bookings and payments through the Airbnb platform. It is convenient for both parties. Airbnb charges 10% commission from hosts upon every booking done through the app platform. Airbnb charges 3% of the booking amount for every transaction from tourists/travelers on every confirmed booking.
An efficient technology stack is required to cover up all the functionality that underlies within a comprehensive app like Airbnb. It essentially features three major profiles: For guests, for hosts and one for admin. The functionality of guest and host profiles are customized according to their requirements. Airbnb contains a large volume of user data, so they use various instruments to store, process, analyze, and manage that data. Airbnb resorted to amazon web services to resolve this. As part of the cloud database, Amazon EC2 is an efficient tool that distributes the incoming traffic and doesn’t let Airbnb’s system go down during sudden traffic spikes or any unexpected traffic fluctuations.
A Typical Technology Stack required for building an App like Airbnb
Although it looks huge and is complex too, the results are equally lucrative. Here is a list of features, technologies and tools that constitute AirBnB:
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- Programming languages– Ruby and JavaScript.
- Framework– Ruby on Rails. RoR framework is well known for its awesome capabilities that speed up development and, as a result, reduce costs and TTM (time to market).
- JavaScript framework– React. A JavaScript UI library, React, is a flexible and efficient solution for building sleek user interfaces.
- Client-Side: CSS, HTML5, JavaScript, React.js
- Server-Side: ElasticSearch, Grape, I18N [2 languages], PostgreSQL, Rack, Rails, Ruby, Sidekiq
- Web server: Nginx. Nginx is a powerful HTTP and proxy server that speeds up content delivery ensures Airbnb’s security and scalability. Not only Airbnb reaps the benefits of Nginx; tech industry giants like Instagram, Netflix, and Zappos use NGinx too.
- Key-value storage: Redis. Redis provides a scalable cache infrastructure and a key/value database.
- Tools (hosting, monitoring and more): Airbrake, AWS S3, Slack, BrowserStack, Codeship, GitHub, Confluence, Heroku, Swagger, Youtrack, Testrail
- Integrations: Intercom, Loco – Translation Management System, Pexip, SendGrid, Stripe, Twilio
- Cloud database: Amazon RDS. Amazon keeps its data in Amazon’s cloud relational database. Earlier, Amazon used MySQL databases but switched to Amazon RDS to simplify administration and other routine tasks.
- Cloud storage: EBS and Amazon S3.
- Cloud hosting: Amazon EC2.
- Big Data Tools: Presto, Druid and Airpal etc.
Products (Language, Utilities, DevOps, and Business Tools) in AirBnB Technology Stack
Akamai, Amazon (CloudSearch, ElastiCache, RDS, Web Services, EC2, EBS), Android Wear SDK, jQuery, AWS Lambda, Bootstrap, Babel, Bugsnag, Button, Clion, Digicert, Driven, eNom Domain Registration, GitHub, Google (Cloud Messaging, Maps), Phusion Passenger, HackerOne, Intelligent Platform, Lightbend Reactive Platform, Librato, New Relic, Folio, nginx, PagerDuty, Ruby on Rails, Sakurity, Sentry, Zencoder, Datadog, Solano CI, Twilio, UserTesting, WordPress, and Zerigo DNS.
Other software products (used across various industry domains) that are part of Airbnb tech stack
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- Sales and Support: Directly, Opentest, Guru, Streak
- Marketing: Criteo, Campaign Monitor, Dragon Metrics, Embedly
- Product and Design: Freedcamp, Asana, Google Fonts, Invision
- HR: Cloudpeeps, Piazza, Culture Amp, HackerRank
- Analytics: Apache Hadoop, Concurrent, Droplr, Heap
- Finance and Accounting: Braintree Payments, Payoneer, FundersClub, PayPal
- Productivity: Do, Envoy, EventBoard, HackPad
Global Payment
Airbnb works in over 190 countries and possesses bank accounts in several currencies. It is licensed as a money transmitter but takes help from third parties to process payments.
Trust & Safety
Airbnb makes use of private messaging before the reservation is booked. Users are allowed to exchange their phone numbers and emails only after successful reservation. Guests are allowed to review and rate about their experience. Airbnb has integrated Facebook’s Graph API to enable social connections. It also offers a $1,000,000 host guarantee in case a property is damaged by guests. All the images that are featured on the app are verified.
Search and Discovery
Airbnb has worked a lot to perfect their search algorithm according to usage statistics, location preferences, consumer behavior, and user query. They have also created a wishlist to enable users to save properties they like. They have facilities like AirBnB neighborhoods to make users visualize the place they wish to visit beforehand. They are also in the process to figure out an efficient algorithm to know location preferences according to user choice. They have developed an open-source framework, AirMapView, which supports multiple native map providers and enables interactive Google Maps for devices with and without Google Play Services.
Messaging & Communication
All the communications via SMS or VoIP calls are answered within 24 hours. Guests receive messages beforehand and after their payment confirmation.
Growth and Customer Experience
They have worked hard to improve their hospitality, working upon customer experiences, local recommendations, and host guides.
In Conclusion
Airbnb is one of the most prominent vacation rental sites on the web. Guests can demand refunds if they perceive that they don’t feel comfortable during their stay. Without conceding, undoubtedly, best app development companies have built a comprehensive tech stack is required to handle trusted services, profiles, reviews, customer service, and secure payments, discover unique accommodation (homestays), user-friendly and convenient marketplace that makes it easy to rent and lease accommodations.