
OpenVidu: Open-source, multi-platform, WebRTC videoconferences - supdatecron
https://openvidu.io/
======
jszymborski
I wonder how these compare to Jitsi and BigBlueButton. I've been using the
hosted Jitsi instance at "meet.jit.si" and have been self-hosting
bigbluebutton and both have been rock solid.

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kabes
Since twilio acquihired the kurento team, it barely got any updates, while the
webrtc spec and implementations move fast. So I'd definitely stick with a
jitsi based solution, which is way more modern and getting regular updates.

~~~
biolurker1
can you build a new app on top of jitsi?

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SahAssar
The open-source variant does not support P2P sessions if I understand it
correctly, which is weird since that is half the point of WebRTC.

~~~
memco
Yeah, I'm a little confused about this as well. It's also not clear if the
demos can be used as is. I would use this for an ad-hoc meeting with friends
if there's no restrictions. Given that they don't mention it maybe that's
fine? I'd be willing to go through the steps to set this up on my own server,
but why do I need to if this site already provides everything I need?

~~~
j1elo
The demos run over a shared instance of a server with fixed resources, so I
wouldn't count on it being the most stable experience, especially if it
becomes popular enough to saturate the machine's resources.

The intention of these demos is just to provide a showcase of the types of
applications that a developer might be able to build, using OpenVidu.

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EGreg
The problem with all of these is that different browsers such as firefox and
safari have trouble with negotiating connections.

For example we built the software we use on
[https://intercoin.org/meeting](https://intercoin.org/meeting) or any website.
It works across safari on ios and chrome and we even made a workaround for
webviews:

[https://mobile.twitter.com/qbixapps/status/11564841564250398...](https://mobile.twitter.com/qbixapps/status/1156484156425039872)

But the sdp connections between the browsers fail and A can hear B but C
can’t. Weird.

Zoom or Google Hangouts doesn’t have such issues because they always assume
one specific environment. Cross browser videoconferencing is not easy

But hey ours is open source and not locked into Twilio or these guys:

[https://github.com/Qbix/Platform](https://github.com/Qbix/Platform)

Search for the string WebRTC

~~~
tpetry
Can you describe why in some cases one cant hear the other peer? There are
different sdp versions if i remember correctly but if you only use audio and
video without changing the tracks later on it should work perfectly i guuess.

~~~
EGreg
Here is what our developers said a week ago:

 _Hi. I learned logs of your meeting where there were problems with peer
connections. I couldn 't reproduce the bug in real-time for now, I'll continue
to debug tomorrow. Some conclusions: \- problems with peer connection were
happening between Firefox <-> Safari ("Mikki" was using Firefox); \- first
time (on the beginning of meeting) bug was caused by error In Safari while
adding video to peer connection - this interrupted negotiation process: Failed
to execute 'setLocalDescription' on 'RTCPeerConnection': Failed to set local
offer sdp: Failed to set local video description recv parameters So, Firefox-
user didn't receive any video from two Safari users. I googled error, there
are very few explanations like a problem with codecs, but I think the bug
depends on who was the initiator of peer connection as next time (after
reconnections) this error wasn't happening (the similar bug is between Chrome
and Firefox). \- the second time, the bug was happening only between Firefox
(Mikki) and Mobile Safari (Alexandra). This case is less clear for me as the
negotiating process wasn't interrupted, but peer connection between these
users was failing int several seconds after it was established._

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franga2000
This looks perfect for a project I've been planning for a while, but the way
the pricing works seems dangerous to base a small company on. They're pricing
it per minute per core (even if idle), as if it's a service - except that
they're not providing the service, I am. I'd much rather pay a flat fee than
never know how much I'll have to pay.

If they want to charge for use, fine, charge ACTIVE time, not UPtime. Running
a single dual-core EC2 instance should be no different than running a 10-core
dedicated server at 20% load.

~~~
j1elo
This has been our first approximation to pricing, and I agree with you, it has
its shortcomings. We are aware of it and recognize it's not the ideal method
of charging users.

Changes on the pricing are on the table now, we'll keep studying different
options and change if something makes more sense than what we have right now.

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j1elo
Hi there, I'm Juan, main developer of Kurento Media Server. I'll try to
contextualize here what is OpenVidu and where it comes from.

Kurento [1] is a WebRTC server which you deploy in your cloud and then control
through another application server, of which OpenVidu is one. While Kurento
tries to provide generic building blocks to allow creating multiple types of
applications, OpenVidu started as a project that builds on top of those
capabilities and focuses on the most commonly requested use case:
videoconference rooms.

From that initial premise, the amount of tasks to do in order to achieve a
professional solution seems endless: easy configuration of producers and
consumers, with roles and permissions; automatic scaling when the load
requires it; dynamic distribution of media flows according to the needs;
recording of the sessions; compatibility with different browsers, and also why
not, with apps on mobile platforms; filtering the media to apply video
effects; the list goes on.

Then, problems will happen. And troubleshooting WebRTC issues is difficult,
because information is all disperse and nebulous, so one is expected to have
all the tools in place beforehand to inspect logs and be able to have an
explanation of why something went bad.

OpenVidu aims to provide an easy to use framework that can cover all those
needs and then some. Its open-source part covers all the basics, and for the
last months we've been working on the Pro offering, which tackles the targets
of automatic scalability, session monitoring, and automatic instantiation of
Kurento Media Server nodes to handle different amounts of sessions (i.e.
"elasticity"), among other things. Some of the features listed in the Pro page
[2] are ready for prime time, and some are a work in progress.

We just released OpenVidu version 2.12.0 [3], which is where a new license
version for the Pro tier sees the light. Our team has been for quite a long
time in the game of WebRTC, working and learning together with the open-source
community while developing Kurento, and now I hope you find that OpenVidu is a
nice value proposition and it helps you build your dream application!

It's late here but tomorrow morning I'll be hanging around here to answer any
questions. See you!

[1]: [https://www.kurento.org/](https://www.kurento.org/)

[2]: [https://openvidu.io/docs/openvidu-
pro/](https://openvidu.io/docs/openvidu-pro/)

[3]: [https://medium.com/@openvidu/openvidu-2-12-0-a-new-
chapter-f...](https://medium.com/@openvidu/openvidu-2-12-0-a-new-chapter-for-
openvidu-d31c78d22857)

~~~
drcursor
Please, please fix [https://github.com/OpenVidu/openvidu-
call/issues/26](https://github.com/OpenVidu/openvidu-call/issues/26) as this
is the only thing blocking us from actively using it or even thinking about
"going" pro.

~~~
j1elo
Hi, we have just set this on top of the OpenVidu Call roadmap. We'll fix it
soon.

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squeezingswirls
Another interesting open source software is Jami
[https://jami.net/](https://jami.net/)

I'm using it and I'm quite happy with it.

~~~
leke
How ready is this? I'm asking because a friend who volunteers in a charity is
looking for something that would allow her to have a large video conferencing
group, perhaps around 20-40 people. With it being a charity, their budget is
usually zero. I don't really have any experience with this kind of thing and
couldn't really give her a recommendation, but perhaps this is a possible
solution.

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biolurker1
Either I misunderstood the calculations or this is much more expensive than
Twilio

