Building a Real-Time Dating App with MAUI, SignalR, and Firebase – My Journey with Opulent Bonds

Hey devs, I'm Anant — a full-time software architect by day, and a startup builder by night.

A few months ago, I started working on something that had been bugging me for a while — dating apps.

Not from the usual user frustration (though there's plenty of that), but from a technical and UX perspective. I wanted to see if I could build a better experience, especially for a niche that's usually overlooked: luxury and safe sugar dating.

So I started building Opulent Bonds — a real-time dating app focused on verified profiles, privacy, and meaningful connections.

Here's a breakdown of the stack, architecture, and lessons learned.

🧱 Tech Stack

  • .NET MAUI for cross-platform UI (targeting Android first)
  • SignalR for real-time messaging
  • Firebase Cloud Messaging for push notifications
  • ASP.NET Web API (.NET 9) as the backend
  • SQLite for local caching on the device
  • Azure Storage + AI for user verification pipeline

🔄 Real-time Messaging with SignalR

SignalR was surprisingly smooth. I wanted typing indicators, instant message delivery, and the feel of WhatsApp/Telegram — without rebuilding a monster.

Key Challenges:

  • Handling real-time chat inside MAUI's CollectionView with soft keyboard resizing.
  • Reverse binding for chat history (I had to override Android native CollectionView behavior).
  • Syncing local cache with SignalR events (especially when users switch between chats).

🔐 Verification Flow with Azure AI (WIP)

Fake profiles plague the dating world — especially in niche markets like sugar dating.

So, I built a manual verification system initially:

  • User uploads a short selfie video.
  • I review it manually and mark them as "Verified."

Now, I’m moving toward using Azure AI + facial match + liveness detection to automate this.

It’s not perfect yet — but for 10–20 verifications a day, the manual system is holding well.

💬 Firebase for Notifications

Firebase was used for all notification logic:

  • New message alerts
  • Verification updates
  • Match notifications

Biggest pain? Firebase token refresh on Android in MAUI can silently fail. I had to implement a fallback auto-retry mechanism.

📱 UI/UX Focus – Basic but Fast

I kept the UI intentionally basic at first — focused on:

  • Error-free flows
  • Zero crashes
  • Fast screen loads

Now I’m slowly layering in style improvements, user avatars, image previews, and full-screen photo viewing.

🧪 Lessons So Far

  • MAUI is almost production-ready, but you’ll need native platform tweaks often.
  • Firebase + SignalR = solid combo if you handle lifecycle events properly.
  • Starting with manual moderation isn’t a bad thing if you expect low-volume at launch.
  • Users care way more about trust and safety than UI flashiness — especially in dating apps.

🔗 Check It Out

If you're curious about what a privacy-first, verified dating app looks like —

we’re live here 👉 Opulent Bonds on Google Play

Would love any feedback or thoughts from fellow devs. I'm still grinding this out every night after work (shoutout to coffee and Spotify lofi beats).

Thanks for reading!

Let me know if you’re working on anything similar or if you're using MAUI in production — I’m happy to share battle scars. 😄