The Deep Engineering Powering Arattai's Meteoric Rise as India's Top Messaging App
Arattai, a messaging app developed by Zoho, has rapidly ascended to become India's most downloaded application, showcasing a remarkable story of engineering excellence and strategic innovation. Behind its seemingly simple chat interface lies decades-long research and a robust technological framework that have equipped it to handle explosive user growth while maintaining high performance and security.
The Engineering Backbone of Arattai
Zoho co-founder Sridhar Vembu recently shared insights into the sophisticated infrastructure supporting Arattai. At its core is a proprietary real-time messaging and audio-visual framework, described by Vembu as the "workhorse" polished over 15 years to enable crisp voice calls and seamless meetings. This foundation ensures reliable, quick connections that underpin user experience.
Additionally, Arattai leverages Zoho’s distributed computing technology developed and refined over more than two decades. This framework efficiently distributes workloads across servers and databases and provides fault tolerance, performance monitoring, and stringent security. Vembu highlighted that this "backbone" is what powers Zoho's suite of secure communication products, reflecting deep R&D efforts by the company.
Unprecedented Growth and Infrastructure Challenges
Arattai's growth surged dramatically following endorsements from key Indian government officials, including Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan, who hailed it as a "truly made in India innovation." The app witnessed a staggering 100-fold traffic increase in a short span, with daily sign-ups soaring from 3,000 to 350,000 within three days.
Vembu acknowledged that the surge came unexpectedly ahead of their planned November release featuring new functionalities and wider marketing. To accommodate this, Zoho is rapidly scaling infrastructure to manage another potential 100-fold peak surge, underscoring the exponential demands of viral app adoption.
As of early October 2025, Arattai had amassed about 5.3 million downloads in India, reaching the top position on Apple’s App Store social networking category and close to the top 100 on Google Play.
Engineering Philosophy and Future Vision
Vembu described dedicated engineering as akin to a spiritual discipline, likening engineers to sages who must remain focused despite praise or criticism. This mindset permeates Zoho’s approach toward creating secure, reliable software.
Arattai positions itself as a privacy-conscious alternative to mainstream apps, offering features like end-to-end encryption for calls, large group chats supporting up to 1,000 participants, and multi-device integration across smartphones, tablets, and Android TV. While text messages currently lack full end-to-end encryption, future updates aim to close this gap.
Beyond messaging, Zoho envisions Arattai evolving into a comprehensive communication ecosystem. Vembu hinted at building interoperability protocols inspired by India's Unified Payments Interface (UPI), potentially integrating payments and commerce capabilities alongside chat features, demonstrating ambitions far beyond typical messaging apps.
Conclusion
Arattai’s rise is a testament to the power of persistent innovation and deep engineering infrastructure. Built on proprietary frameworks honed over decades and supported by robust distributed computing, the app’s explosive adoption in India reflects not only user demand but also strategic technology foresight. With upcoming features and broader ambitions to create an interoperable ecosystem, Arattai is poised to shape India’s digital communication landscape for years to come.
This journey from a simple chat app to a cornerstone of communication infrastructure highlights how sustained R&D investment and disciplined engineering can drive unprecedented success. Arattai stands as a "truly made in India" innovation ready to compete in the global messaging arena.