What is WebRTC and what are its top alternatives?
Top Alternatives to WebRTC
- SignalR
SignalR allows bi-directional communication between server and client. Servers can now push content to connected clients instantly as it becomes available. SignalR supports Web Sockets, and falls back to other compatible techniques for older browsers. SignalR includes APIs for connection management (for instance, connect and disconnect events), grouping connections, and authorization. ...
- XMPP
It is a set of open technologies for instant messaging, presence, multi-party chat, voice and video calls, collaboration, lightweight middleware, content syndication, and generalized routing of XML data. ...
- Zoom
Zoom unifies cloud video conferencing, simple online meetings, and cross platform group chat into one easy-to-use platform. Our solution offers the best video, audio, and screen-sharing experience across Zoom Rooms, Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, and H.323/SIP room systems. ...
- Twilio
Twilio offers developers a powerful API for phone services to make and receive phone calls, and send and receive text messages. Their product allows programmers to more easily integrate various communication methods into their software and programs. ...
- Skype
Skype’s text, voice and video make it simple to share experiences with the people that matter to you, wherever they are. ...
- Discord
Discord is a modern free voice & text chat app for groups of gamers. Our resilient Erlang backend running on the cloud has built in DDoS protection with automatic server failover. ...
- Google Meet
It is the business-oriented version of Google's Hangouts platform and is suitable for businesses of all sizes. It allows users to dial in phone numbers to access meetings, thus enabling users with slow internet connection to call in. ...
- Jitsi
Jitsi (acquired by 8x8) is a set of open-source projects that allows you to easily build and deploy secure videoconferencing solutions. At the heart of Jitsi are Jitsi Videobridge and Jitsi Meet, which let you have conferences on the internet, while other projects in the community enable other features such as audio, dial-in, recording, and simulcasting. ...
WebRTC alternatives & related posts
SignalR
- Supports .NET server32
- Real-time25
- Free18
- Fallback to SSE, forever frame, long polling16
- WebSockets15
- Simple10
- Open source9
- Ease of use8
- JSON8
- Cool5
- Azure0
- Expertise hard to get2
- Requires jQuery2
- Weak iOS and Android support1
- Big differences between ASP.NET and Core versions1
related SignalR posts
We need to interact from several different Web applications (remote) to a client-side application (.exe in .NET Framework, Windows.Console under our controlled environment). From the web applications, we need to send and receive data and invoke methods to client-side .exe on javascript events like users onclick. SignalR is one of the .Net alternatives to do that, but it adds overhead for what we need. Is it better to add SignalR at both client-side application and remote web application, or use gRPC as it sounds lightest and is multilingual?
SignalR or gRPC are always sending and receiving data on the client-side (from browser to .exe and back to browser). And web application is used for graphical visualization of data to the user. There is no need for local .exe to send or interact with remote web API. Which architecture or framework do you suggest to use in this case?
related XMPP posts
- Web conferencing made easy25
- Remote control option16
- Draw on screen13
- Very reliable12
- In-meeting chat is pretty good11
- Free9
- Pair programming sessions with shared controls9
- Easy to share meeting links/invites8
- Good Sound Quality7
- Cloud recordings for meetings6
- Great mobile app5
- Virtual backgrounds4
- Recording Feature4
- Other people use it4
- User Friendly actions4
- Reactions (emoticons)2
- Auto reconnecting2
- Chrome extension is great to easily create meetings2
- While sharing screen, you can still see your video2
- Mute all participants at once2
- When ending the videocall, everybody gets kicked2
- Different options for blocking chat2
- Easily share video with audio1
- /zoom on Slack1
- Registration form1
- Meant for business and education1
- Zoom0
- Limited time if you are a basic member20
- Limited Storage14
- Hate how sharing your screen defaults to Full Screen11
- Quality isn't great (Free)10
- No cursor highlight on screenshare.9
- Potential security flaws8
- Onboarding process for new users is not intuitive7
- Virtual background quality isn't good5
- Security5
- Editing can be improved4
- Doesn't handle switching audio sources well4
- The native calendar is buggy4
- Dashboard can be improved4
- Pornographic material displayed3
- Any body can get in it3
- Not many emojis3
- Past chat history is not saved3
- Recording Feature3
- En In reality,the chat in the meet not is excelent,noo3
- Zoom lags a lot3
related Zoom posts
Uploadcare is mostly remote team and we're using video conferencing all the time both for internal team meetings and for external sales, support, interview, etc. calls. I think we've tried every solution there is on the market before we've decided to stop with Zoom.
Tools just plainly don't work (Skype), are painful to install for external participants (Webex and other "enterprise" solutions) can't properly handle 10+ participants calls (Google Hangouts Chat).
Zoom just works. It has all required features and even handles bad connections very graciously. One of the best tool decisions we've ever made :)
I want to host an online Jeopardy game with less than 30 participants. During each round of the game, I'll stream some videos. The point is to gather friends together to play the Jeopardy game and watch random stuff. Please let me know if there's a more suitable platform other than Discord and Zoom. Thanks, everyone!
- Powerful, simple, and well documented api148
- RESTful API88
- Clear pricing66
- Great sms services61
- Low cost of entry58
- Global SMS Gateway29
- Good value14
- Cloud IVR12
- Simple11
- Extremely simple to integrate with rails11
- Great for startups6
- SMS5
- Great developer program3
- Hassle free3
- Text me the app pages2
- New Features constantly rolling out1
- Many deployment options, from build from scratch to buy1
- Easy integration1
- Two factor authentication1
- Predictable pricing4
- Expensive2
related Twilio posts
Hi, We are looking to implement 2FA - so that users would be sent a Verification code over their Email and SMS to their phone.
We faced some limitations with Amazon SNS where we could either send the verification code to email OR to the phone number, while we want to send it to both.
We also are looking to make the 2FA more flexible by adding any other options later on.
What are the best alternatives to SNS for this use case and purpose? Looked at Twilio but want to explore other options before making a decision.
Would be great to know what the experience with Twilio has been, especially the limitations/issues with Twilio...
Appreciate any input from users of Twilio and others who have had similar use cases.
Searching for options for SMS that integrates with SiteLink and will allow personalization of text and tracking of both incoming/outgoing messages with reporting (Time, date, call#, etc) Have been looking at Twilio, and seems most leaning toward this. Are there any other options known that integrate into SiteLink? Also looked at Clickatell.
Skype
- Free, widespread258
- Desktop and mobile apps147
- Because i have to :(110
- Low cost international calling57
- Good for international calls56
- Best call quality anywhere, generally10
- Beautiful emojis5
- Chat bots4
- Translator2
- Skype for business integration with Outlook2
- United kingdom1
- Not the Best, but get the job done1
- Really high CPU utilization during video/screenshare5
- Not always reliable3
- Outdated UI3
- Birthday notifications are annoying3
- The worst indicator noises of any app ever3
- Finding/adding people isn't easy2
related Skype posts
Uploadcare is mostly remote team and we're using video conferencing all the time both for internal team meetings and for external sales, support, interview, etc. calls. I think we've tried every solution there is on the market before we've decided to stop with Zoom.
Tools just plainly don't work (Skype), are painful to install for external participants (Webex and other "enterprise" solutions) can't properly handle 10+ participants calls (Google Hangouts Chat).
Zoom just works. It has all required features and even handles bad connections very graciously. One of the best tool decisions we've ever made :)
I use Slack because it offers the best experience, even on the free tier (which we're still using). As a comparison, I have had in depth experience with HipChat, Stride, Skype, Google Chat (the new service), Google Hangouts (the old service). For self hosted, Mattermost is open source and claims to support most Slack integrations, but I have not extensively investigated this claim.
Discord
- Unlimited Users65
- Unlimited Channels59
- Easy to use55
- Voice Chat51
- Fast and easy set-ups and connections49
- Clean UI46
- Mobile Friendly43
- Free43
- Android App33
- Mention system29
- Customizable notifications on per channel basis27
- Customizable ranks/permissions26
- IOS app22
- Good code embedding21
- Vast Webhook Support19
- Dark mode16
- Easy context switching between work and home14
- Roles14
- Great Communities13
- Very Resource Friendly12
- Robust12
- Easy to develop for12
- Great Customer Support12
- Bot control12
- Video Call Conference11
- Video call meeting11
- Able to hold 99 people in one call10
- Sharing screen layer10
- Great browser experience9
- Shares screen with other member9
- Easy Server Setup and joining system9
- Easy8
- Lower bandwidth requirements than competitors7
- Easy to code bots for7
- Noice6
- Easily set up custom emoji3
- For gamers9
- Not as many integrations as Slack9
- Limited file size4
- For everyone4
- Sends data to US Gov3
- Unsupportive Support1
- Suspected Pedophiles in few servers1
- Undescriptive in global ban reasons1
related Discord posts
Shortly after I joined Algolia as a developer advocate, I knew I wanted to establish a place for the community to congregate and share their projects, questions and advice. There are a ton of platforms out there that can be used to host communities, and they tend to fall into two categories - real-time sync (like chat) and async (like forums). Because the community was already large, I felt that a chat platform like Discord or Gitter might be overwhelming and opted for a forum-like solution instead (which would also create content that's searchable from Google).
I looked at paid, closed-source options like AnswerHub and ForumBee and old-school solutions like phpBB and vBulletin, but none seemed to offer the power, flexibility and developer-friendliness of Discourse. Discourse is open source, written in Rails with Ember.js on the front-end. That made me confident I could modify it to meet our exact needs. Discourse's own forum is very active which made me confident I could get help if I needed it.
It took about a month to get Discourse up-and-running and make authentication tied to algolia.com via the SSO plugin. Adding additional plugins for moderation or look-and-feel customization was fairly straightforward, and I even created a plugin to make the forum content searchable with Algolia. To stay on top of answering questions and moderation, we used the Discourse API to publish new messages into our Slack. All-in-all I would say we were happy with Discourse - the only caveat would be that it's very helpful to have technical knowledge as well as Rails knowledge in order to get the most out of it.
From a StackShare Community member: “We’re about to start a chat group for our open source project (over 5K stars on GitHub) so we can let our community collaborate more closely. The obvious choice would be Slack (k8s and a ton of major projects use it), but we’ve seen Gitter (webpack uses it) for a lot of open source projects, Discord (Vue.js moved to them), and as of late I’m seeing Spectrum more and more often. Does anyone have experience with these or other alternatives? Is it even worth assessing all these options, or should we just go with Slack? Some things that are important to us: free, all the regular integrations (GitHub, Heroku, etc), mobile & desktop apps, and open source is of course a plus."
- Free35
- Integrated with G Suite15
- Group video call14
- Gmail server integration10
- Good to make phone calls10
- Instant Messaging9
- Easy to add and remove contacts9
- Unlimited Storage (Premium version)7
- Easy setup6
- User friendly mobile app6
- Record (Premium Feature)6
- Accessible from the Browser5
- Saves the chats for future reference5
- Browser extension5
- No pornography3
- Google Meet is never buggy2
- Cool emoji extensions2
- Amazing captions2
- 16 people show at the same time2
- Meet has the best quality in terms of participant view2
- Quality isn't great9
- Really high CPU utilization during video/screenshare5
- No client annotation on shared screen2
- Not great sound quality2
- Difficult to share video with audio2
- Needs to take measures to improve the ecosystem2
- Auto-added to G Cal invites1
- Needs better support and rollout process1
- No interactions activities1
- Overheat cpu on Android1
- No desktop client1
- No desktop client1
related Google Meet posts
I own an Escape Room. Since right now everyone is practicing social distancing, I would like to run my Escape Room games virtually. I would like to allow approx 4 users to log in to play. They can chitchat a few minutes before their game to get to know each other. Then once the game begins, I will introduce myself and give them the plot to their escape game. I will have a wide-angle camera mounted to the wall to show the room, and as the game master, carry a tablet or webcam around as players talk to me and direct me to show them certain items in the room, move in for closeups in certain areas, try lock combinations, etc. I will be their hands while they solve the puzzles. I am not sure if Google Hangouts Google Meet or Zoom is better for this. I did try it yesterday using google hangout meet and it was good, but I think there may have been a wifi issue where it was choppy. Just trying to figure out the best option. Thank you! Catherine
- Open Source32
- Entirely free conferencing20
- Unlimited time19
- Accessible from browser5
- Desktop, app and browser tab sharing3
- WebRTC standard3
- Secure & encrypted video conference2
- Great API to develop with2
- Live stream to youtube2
- Dial-In and Dial-Out via SIP1
- Full HD1
- FSB Approved1
- Share youtube videos in conference1
- Easy installation and good support1
- MCU0
- UnLimited time7
- No multiplatform5
- Great quality1
- Good support1
- Live conference statistics1
- Great features1
related Jitsi posts
A common issue with Zoom is the "half-duplex" operation, where only one person can speak at a time, and another person speaking will cause an interrupt and take control. Hence the infernal mute button is so needed. Does Jitsi allow for a "full-duplex" communication to occur? An example scenario is two people singing a duet, which is impossible on a Zoom call.
Many Thanks, Garry