Looking for an Agora alternative to seamlessly integrate real-time video into your application? Chances are you've come across Agora. Established in 2013, Agora was among the pioneers in developing a developer platform that offers broadcast, voice, and video calls for mobile and web applications through its software development kit (SDK).
While Agora's platform was groundbreaking during the early 2010s, it has fallen behind in releasing significant updates over the years, leaving room for innovative platforms like Video SDK to provide a refreshing approach to live video.
PS: If you happen to be an Agora customer, I encourage you to keep reading to discover what you might be missing out on by sticking with the platform.
What to Seek in an Agora Alternative?
Undoubtedly, live video is challenging, and Agora only adds to the complexity. Merely building a basic live experience in your app with Agora requires integrating and paying for the various SDKs it offers. Therefore, when searching for an alternative live video solution, keep an eye out for the following:
Customization
In an Agora alternative, prioritize customization. Choose an SDK that gives developers full control over the user interface (UI) and overall experience. Look for low-code prebuilt UI options to speed up initial setup, saving time and effort. Striking a balance between customization and user-friendly prebuilt options enables you to create a unique and engaging live video experience without extensive development. Customization ensures the alternative SDK meets your specific requirements, delivering a personalized and seamless solution.
High adaptive bitrate
Look for an alternative SDK that offers high adaptive bitrate technology. This ensures that your live video streams are optimized for different network conditions, providing a smooth and uninterrupted viewing experience for your users. Adaptive bitrate automatically adjusts the stream quality based on available bandwidth, resulting in optimal video quality without buffering or interruptions.
Pricing
It is crucial to consider the pricing structure of the alternative SDK. Look for a solution that offers transparent and competitive pricing, without hidden fees or additional costs. Ideally, the SDK should provide built-in collaboration features, eliminating the need for integrating multiple SDKs separately. This not only simplifies the development process but also helps to optimize costs by offering all the necessary features in one package.
Single SDK
Building a live service in your application shouldn't necessitate mixing and matching dozens of SDKs. Instead, opt for a comprehensive single SDK that offers everything you require, from video calling to voice calling, streaming, and beyond.
With that in mind, let's delve into this guide, where we'll explore the leading players that deserve your consideration in the video SDK market.
The Top 10 Alternatives to Agora
Agora alternatives are available to overcome the issues like Customization, Network Management, Collaborative Features, Pricing, Security, and Customer support. Hereβs the list: Video SDK, Twilio, Jitsi, EnableX, Zoom Video SDK, TokBox Opentok, Whereby, AWS Chime, Daily, and SignalWire.
To give you a glimpse of what awaits you while seeking a live video SDK, we've curated a list of ten Agora alternatives:
- Video SDK
- Twilio
- Jitsi
- Enablex
- Zoom Video SDK
- TokBox Opentok [Vonage]
- Whereby
- AWS Chime
- Daily
- SignalWire
1. Video SDK
Video SDK provides an API that allows developers to easily add powerful, extensible, scalable, and resilient audio-video features to their apps with just a few lines of code. Add live audio and video experiences to any platform in minutes.
The key advantage of using Video SDK is itβs quite easy and quick to integrate, allowing you to focus more on building innovative features to enhance user retention.
With Video SDK, you can expect the following:
High scalability : Video SDKβs high scalability with infinite room and zero maintenance ensures uninterrupted availability, and that too with <99ms latency. It supports up to 300 attendees, including 50 presenters that empowers large-scale collaborations. This advanced infrastructure enables global reach and success in the digital landscape.
High adaptive bitrate : Video SDK offers high adaptive bitrate technology for an immersive audio-video experience. It auto-adjusts stream quality under bandwidth constraints and adapts to varying network conditions. With a global infrastructure and secure usage in restricted network environments, Video SDK delivers optimal performance and seamless streaming.
End to end customized SDK : With their end-to-end customized SDK, you have the power to fully customize the UI to meet your unique needs. Their code samples help accelerate your time-to-market, while template layouts can be easily customized in any orientation. Leveraging their PubSub feature, you can build engaging and interactive features, enhancing the overall user experience.
Quality Recordings : Experience high-quality recordings on any connection with Video SDK. Their solution supports 1080p video recording capability, ensuring crystal-clear and detailed footage. With programmable layouts and custom templates, you can tailor the recording experience to your specific requirements. Easily store your recordings in the Video SDK cloud or popular cloud storage providers such as AWS, GCP, or Azure. Access your recordings conveniently from the dashboard itself, providing seamless management and retrieval of your valuable content.
Detailed analytics : Gain access to in-depth analytics on video call metrics, including participant interactions and duration, allowing you to analyze participant interest throughout the session.
Cross-platform streaming : Stream live events to millions of viewers across platforms such as YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook and more with built-in RTMP support.
Seamless scaling : Effortlessly scale live audio/video within your web app, accommodating from just a few users to over 10,000 and reaching millions of viewers through RTMP output.
Platform support : Build your live video app for a specific platform and seamlessly run it across browsers, devices, and operating systems with minimal development efforts.
Mobile : Flutter, Android (Java/Kotlin), iOS (Objective-C/Swift), React Native
Web : JavaScript Core SDK + UI Kit for React JS, Angular, Web Components for other frameworks
Desktop : Flutter Desktop
Video SDK Pricing :
Video SDK offers 10,000 free minutes that renew monthly. You only start paying once you exhaust the free minutes. The best thing is, pricing for video and audio calls are considered separately. Pricing for video calls begins at $0.003 per participant per minute and for audio calls, it begins at $0.0006 per participant per minute. The additional cost for cloud recordings is $0.015 per minute and RTMP output is $0.030 per minute. You can estimate your costs using their pricing calculator.
Video SDK provides free 24/7 support to all customers. Their dedicated team is available to assist you through your preferred communication channel whenever you need help with basic queries, upcoming events, or technical requirements.
2. Jitsi
Jitsi is a collection of open-source projects that enable you to build and deploy video conferencing solutions within your applications. Their most well-known offerings are Jitsi Meet and Jitsi Videobridge.
Jitsi Meet is a JavaScript-based client application that facilitates video chatting. It allows you to share screens, collaborate in real time, invite users, and more. You can access the conference via a web browser or Android/iOS apps.
Jitsi Videobridge is an XMPP server (Prosody) capable of hosting large-scale video chats. It is WebRTC-compatible and provides default encryption.
Key Points about Jitsi :
- Jitsi is free, open-source, and offers end-to-end encryption, giving you the ability to review and modify the code according to your requirements.
- The live experience includes features such as active speakers, text chatting (web only), room locking, screen sharing, raise/lower hand, push-to-talk mode, audio-only option, and more.
- However, certain essential features like shared text documents based on Etherpad, streaming, telephone dial-in to a conference, dial-out to a telephone participant, and more, only work if Jibri is configured.
- Recording a call requires additional effort. You need to live stream your conference to YouTube and access the recording from there or set up Jibri for this purpose.
- Obtaining support to resolve issues can take over 48 hours.
- The tool does not automatically manage user bandwidth in the event of network instability, potentially resulting in a blank screen.
Pricing for Jitsi :
Jitsi is 100% open source and available for free usage and development. However, you are responsible for setting up your own servers and creating the UI from scratch. Product support comes at an additional cost.
3. Twilio
Twilio initially focused on automating phone calls and SMS services but has now expanded its offerings to provide developers with a range of APIs for building business communication across various channels.
Twilio allows you to either create an app from scratch or enhance an existing solution with communication features. The SDK supports multiple programming languages, including Java and Ruby.
Key Points about Twilio :
- Twilio provides web, iOS, and Android SDKs. However, when utilizing multiple audio and video inputs, developers need to manually configure them, requiring additional code implementation.
- In case a user's call drops or any issues arise during the call, Twilio offers call insights to track and analyze errors.
- Twilio supports a maximum of 50 hosts within a call and a total of 50 participants, including hosts.
- Twilio does not offer any plugins to simplify product development.
- With the SDK, you will need to allocate engineering resources to handle hard coding for various edge cases that can potentially disrupt a user's video call.
Pricing for Twilio :
Twilio's pricing starts at $4 per 1,000 minutes. Additionally, there are costs associated with recordings, which amount to $0.004 per participant minute, recording compositions priced at $0.01 per composed minute, and storage fees of $0.00167 per GB per day after the first 10 GBs.
Twilio's free support plan includes API status notifications and email support during business hours. Users can opt for additional services such as 24/7 live chat support, a support escalation line, quarterly status reviews, and guaranteed response times at an extra cost. The price for these services varies, usually based on a percentage of the monthly plan or a specific minimum amount (ranging from $250/month to $5000/month).
4. EnableX
EnableX offers live video, voice, and messaging SDKs that serve as fundamental building blocks to expedite the development of live experiences in your applications. It primarily targets service providers, ISVs, SIs, and developers.
The SDK provides a video builder that allows you to implement a customized video-calling solution into your application. Alternatively, you can create personalized live video streams with tailored UI, hosting capabilities, billing integration, and other essential functionalities. The self-service portal grants you access to reporting features and live analytics, enabling you to monitor quality and facilitate online payments from clients. The SDK supports a limited range of programming languages, including JavaScript, PHP, and Python. It enables your users to stream live content directly from your app or website, as well as stream directly on platforms like YouTube or Facebook for unlimited reach. Please note that the support team may take up to 72 hours to respond to your support requests. Integrating the SDK into your application may require several weeks. The SDK does not optimize users' videos in the event of device or network issues. EnableX pricing
The SDK is priced at $0.004 per participant minute for up to 50 participants per room. For pricing involving over 50 participants, it is necessary to contact their sales team. The recording is charged at $0.10 per participant per minute, transcoding at $0.10 per minute, and storage at $0.05 per GB per month. RTMP streaming incurs a cost of $0.10 per minute.
5. Zoom Video SDK
The Zoom Video SDK empowers developers to create customized live video-based applications utilizing the technology behind Zoom.
Zoom introduced the Video SDK as they recognized that the traditional Zoom client might not meet all customer requirements. By providing access to the underlying Zoom technology, customers can unlock additional benefits.
The SDK offers a comprehensive set of services, including video, audio, screen sharing, chat, data streams, and more. Developers have the flexibility to utilize all of these features or select specific ones based on their application's needs. Additionally, the Video SDK provides robust server-side APIs and webhooks.
Zoom Video SDK at a glance
With the Zoom Video SDK, you can build applications with customizable video compositions, supporting up to 1,000 co-hosts/participants per session. The SDK offers limited customization options for the live video itself. It enables you to incorporate screen sharing, third-party live streaming, and in-session chat, while also providing control over the call's layout. Zoom supports seven major languages and offers an open translation extensibility, facilitating international growth and enhancing user experience. The SDK only supports the predetermined roles of a host and participant. This limitation may pose challenges for use cases that require customized permissions for peers. Unless you opt for paid support plans, you will receive slower email support. The SDK provides partial assistance in managing user bandwidth consumption during network degradation. Zoom Video SDK pricing
Zoom provides 10,000 free minutes per month, and charges apply only once you exceed this limit. Pricing starts at $0.31 per user minute, with recordings available for $100 per month for 1 TB of storage. Telephony services are priced at $100 per month.
Zoom offers three customer support plans: Access, Premier, and Premier+. For detailed pricing information, it is necessary to contact Zoom directly.
6. TokBox OpenTok (Vonage Video API)
TokBox OpenTok, now known as Vonage Video API, is a viable option for creating customized video experiences in mobile, web, or desktop applications.
Opentok was established in 2008 when the company shifted its business strategy from providing a struggling consumer video conference product to offering the underlying technology. This allows companies to embed a video conference component into their websites.
In addition to live video, the API encompasses voice, messaging, and screen-sharing capabilities. It provides client libraries for web, iOS, Android, Windows, and Linux, along with server-side SDKs and a REST API.
OpenTok at a glance
The SDK enables the creation of custom audio/video streams on mobile devices with various effects, filters, and AR/VR integration. It supports use cases such as one-on-one video calls, group video chats, and large-scale broadcast sessions. Calls can consist of video and voice, voice-only, or a combination. Participants in a call can share screens, exchange data, and chat with each other. The SDK provides performance data for detailed session analysis through the account dashboard or via its insights API. All voice, video, and signaling traffic is encrypted using AES-128 or AES-256 encryption. Additionally, video recordings can be optionally encrypted with AES-256. The SDK complies with GDPR and HIPAA regulations. It supports a maximum of 55 participants per call. The company offers chat-based support, which may take up to 72 hours to respond to your inquiries. During a stream, you can have up to 2,000 concurrent room participants. The platform does not handle the live video backend, so you need to allocate resources to develop edge case management capabilities. OpenTok pricing
OpenTok follows a usage-based pricing model, calculated dynamically for each minute based on the number of participants in a video session. Plans start at $9.99 per month, which includes free 2,000 minutes per month across all plans. After exhausting the free minutes, pricing is set at $0.00395 per participant minute. Recording starts at $0.10 per minute, and HLS streaming is priced at $0.15 per minute.
7. Whereby
Whereby offers browser-based meetings that can be accessed through a permanent room owned by each user. Guests can join meetings by simply clicking a link, without requiring any downloads or registrations. They have recently introduced a hybrid meeting solution for distributed teams, which reduces echo and eliminates the need for expensive meeting hardware.
Whereby at a glance
The tool allows you to customize the video interface by adding logos, colors, and buttons using their no-code interface editor. However, the customization options are limited, and you cannot create a completely custom experience with Whereby. It enables you to offer video calls seamlessly from your website, mobile apps, or other web products, without the need for external links or apps. Whereby emphasizes data privacy and GDPR compliance. They do not mine or sell user data, and all content is encrypted. The SDK provides basic collaborative features such as screen sharing, recording, picture-in-picture, and text chat. However, it does not offer the ability to add more interactive elements through APIs. The SDK does not automatically handle user-host publish-subscribe logic, requiring manual implementation on your end.
Whereby pricing
Whereby offers pricing plans starting at $9.99 per month, which includes up to 2,000 user minutes that renew monthly. Additional minutes are charged at $0.004 per minute, and cloud recording and live streaming are available at $0.01 per minute.
Email and chat support are provided for free to all accounts. Technical onboarding, customer success manager, and HIPAA compliance options are available for enterprise plans.
8. AWS Chime
AWS Chime is a video conferencing tool provided by Amazon Web Services, primarily designed for business users. It offers features such as VoIP calling, video messaging, and virtual meetings, allowing users to host or join remote meetings through the service.
Here's an overview of AWS Chime :
- Conduct and attend online meetings with high-definition video, audio, dial-in numbers, and in-room video conference support.
- Collaborative features include screen sharing, remote desktop control, and individual/group text-based chats.
- Host team meetings with up to 250 participants, and manage meeting controls, recording, scheduling, delegate assignments, etc.
- Enhanced security using AWS Identity and Access Management policies, enabling user administration, policy management, and SSO setup.
- Supports audio recording in .m4a format and converts screen shares to video (.mp4). However, the attendee recording is not available.
- Session analytics are not available unless you opt for the enterprise plan, which comes at a higher price.
- Basic bandwidth management capabilities to handle minor disruptions in the user's network.
- The platform does not provide edge case management capabilities, which means you are responsible for handling such scenarios.
AWS Chime pricing :
- Basic Tier: Free, includes one-on-one audio and video calls and group chat.
- Plus Tier: $2.50 per user per month, includes all basic features, screen sharing, remote desktop control, 1 GB message history per user, and Active Directory integration.
- Pro Tier: $15 per user per month, includes all Plus features, allows scheduling and hosting meetings for three or more people (up to 100 attendees), meeting recording, Outlook integration, and more.
9. Daily
Daily is a platform that enables developers to build real-time video and audio calls that work directly in the browser. It provides SDKs and APIs to handle common backend video call use cases across different platforms.
Here's an overview of Daily :
- Two main approaches: Daily Client SDKs allow developers to build custom UIs by interacting with Daily's core APIs. Daily Prebuilt is an embeddable video chat widget that can be added to any web app with fewer lines of code.
- Collaborative features include HD screen sharing, breakout rooms, raise a hand, live transcription, whiteboard, and customizable text chat to enhance the user experience.
- Prerecorded video can be embedded, interactive real-time calls can be hosted with up to 1,000 people, and live streaming to millions is possible with minimal latency. Real-time call data is available for debugging and optimization.
- Mobile SDKs are currently in the beta phase of development, so their evolution and ability to solve specific use cases may vary.
- Support response time can take up to 72 hours to resolve issues.
- Users need to add their own publish-subscribe logic to manage live video interactions.
- The platform does not have built-in edge case management capabilities.
Daily pricing :
- $0.004 per participant minute, with free 10,000 minutes refreshed per month.
- Additional charges for audio ($0.00099/user/minute), streaming ($0.0012/minute), RTMP output ($0.015/minute), and recording ($0.01349/GB).
Email and chat support are available for free for all accounts. Advanced support features are available through add-on packages starting from $250 per month.
10. SignalWire
SignalWire is an API-driven platform that allows developers to integrate live and on-demand video experiences into their applications. It simplifies video encoding, delivery, and renditions, aiming to provide a seamless video streaming experience.
Here's a summary of SignalWire :
- The SDK enables developers to embed real-time video and live streams into their applications. It supports web, iOS, and Android SDKs for building applications with live video capabilities.
- Each call supports up to 100 participants in a real-time webRTC environment with their video enabled.
- The SDK does not include built-in support for managing video call disruptions or handling the publish-subscribe logic of meeting users. These aspects would need to be implemented separately.
SignalWire pricing :
- Pricing includes $0.0060 per minute for hd and $0.012 for a full hd video call.
- Additional features such as recording cost $0.0045 per minute, and streaming is priced at $0.10 per minute.
Certainly!
While all the video conferencing SDKs mentioned offer various features and capabilities, Video SDK stands out as an SDK that prioritizes a fast and seamless integration experience.
Video SDK offers a low-code solution that allows developers to quickly build live video experiences in their applications. With Video SDK, it is possible to create and deploy custom video conferencing solutions in under 10 minutes, significantly reducing the time and effort required for integration.
Unlike other SDKs that may have longer integration times or limited customization options, Video SDK aims to provide a streamlined process. By leveraging Video SDK, developers can create and embed live video experiences with ease, allowing users to connect, communicate, and collaborate in real-time.
Still skeptical?
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