WebRTC vs Websockets: If WebRTC can do Video, Audio, and Data, why do I need Websockets? [closed]

manpreet Best Answer 2 years ago

So im looking to build a chat app that will allow video, audio and text. I spent some time researching into Websockets and WebRTC to decide which to use. Since there are plenty video and audio apps with WebRTC, this sounds like a reasonable choice, but are there other things I should consider? Feel free to share your thoughts.

Things like:

• Due to being new WebRTC is available only on some browsers, while websockets seems to be in more browsers.

• Scalability - Websockets uses a server for session and WebRTC seems to be p2p

• Multiplexing/multiple chatrooms - Used in Google+ Hangouts, and im still viewing demo apps on how to implement

• Server - Websockets needs RedisSessionStore or RabbitMQ to scale across multiple machines

manpreet 2 years ago

webRTC or websockets? Why not use both.

When building a video/audio/text chat, webRTC is definitely a good choice since it uses peer to peer technology and once the connection is up and running, you do not need to pass the communication via a server (unless using TURN).

When setting up the webRTC communication you have to involve some sort of signaling mechanism. Websockets could be a good choice here, but webRTC is the way to go for the video/audio/text info. Chat rooms is accomplished in the signaling.

But, as you mention, not every browser supports webRTC, so websockets can sometimes be a good fallback for those browsers.