Intro to LiveKit

LiveKit is a realtime platform that enables developers to build video, voice, and data capabilities into their applications. Building on WebRTC, it supports a broad range of frontend and backend platforms.

Problems LiveKit solves

• Scalability: Building scalable realtime communication systems is challenging. LiveKit is an opinionated, horizontally-scaling WebRTC SFU (Selective Forwarding Unit) that allows applications to scale to support large numbers of concurrent users.
• Complexity: Implementing WebRTC from scratch is complex, involving signaling, media handling, networking, and more. LiveKit solves these undifferentiated problems, presenting a consistent set of API primitives across platforms.
• Fragmented solutions: Many WebRTC solutions lack advanced features like simulcast, selective subscription, SVC codecs, and end-to-end encryption. LiveKit provides these and more out-of-the-box.
• Vendor lock-in: Proprietary WebRTC solutions can lead to vendor lock-in. As an open-source platform, LiveKit makes it easy to switch between our self-hosted and Cloud offerings.

How LiveKit works

LiveKit's architecture consists of the following key components.

• LiveKit Server: This is the core component of the LiveKit platform. It acts as a Selective Forwarding Unit (SFU), handling signaling, media, and other realtime communication tasks.
• SDKs: LiveKit provides full-featured web, native, and backend SDKs to abstract away WebRTC complexity for easier integration.
• Egress: This component allows recording or live streaming of rooms and individual participant tracks.
• Ingress: This enables ingesting external streams (such as RTMP and WHIP) into LiveKit rooms.
• AI Agents: This server side framework allows building intelligent, AI-powered applications with realtime capabilities.
• CLI: This utility allows you to create and manage LiveKit services, whether cloud or self-hosted.

Build a LiveKit implementation

Here's a high-level overview of the steps involved in building a LiveKit implementation:

1. Set up LiveKit Server: Deploy the LiveKit Server binary or Docker image to your infrastructure (self-hosted), or use the LiveKit Cloud managed service.
2. Create an Access Token server: Set up a mechanism to generate and validate access tokens (JWT) for secure room access using the LiveKit server APIs.
3. Build your frontend: Develop the user interface for video conferencing, including camera and microphone access, participant lists, and screen sharing using the appropriate LiveKit SDK for your platform.
4. Add advanced features (optional): Integrate additional LiveKit components like Egress, Ingress, or AI Agents based on your application's requirements.
5. Test and optimize: Thoroughly test your implementation across different networks, devices, and loads. Optimize media server settings (CPU, bandwidth, codecs) as needed.
6. Deploy and monitor: Deploy your LiveKit implementation to production and set up monitoring and logging for performance tracking and debugging.

Deployment considerations

When building a LiveKit implementation, you can either self-host the open-source LiveKit server, or use the managed LiveKit Cloud service. Here's a table comparing them.