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Embedded Realtime Audio & Video

Choose managed or self-operated realtime media infrastructure for audio and video embedded in a product.

Recommendation

Choose media-plane ownership before the SDK.

LiveKit represents deployment control, Daily a managed video API, and Agora a global realtime-engagement route.12

For: Product and engineering teams embedding realtime audio and video rather than selecting consumer meeting software

Main trade-off

Realtime platforms reduce media-plane assembly while adding participant-minute, concurrency, recording, storage, egress, region, moderation, privacy, provider, and migration constraints.12345

Three realtime-media routes

Deployment ownership, managed call primitives, and global engagement operations create different systems.

  1. Media and product model

    Define rooms, participants, roles, audio/video/data, SDK platforms, call UI, recording, streaming, and moderation.12

  2. Quality and infrastructure

    Confirm SFU/media plane, TURN, regions, latency, resilience, observability, scaling, and deployment ownership.12

  3. Data and economics

    Normalize participant minutes, concurrency, recording, storage, egress, retention, support, data, add-ons, and exit.12

Route by media-plane ownership

Select the route that fits deployment control, product surface, regions, and operating capacity.

Deployment and media-plane control

Choose LiveKit

Cloud and self-hosted routes and its realtime SDK model fit a team that values deployment choice.

Verify: Evaluate cloud and self-hosted Claims separately; confirm participant minutes, egress, recording, regions, operations, and support.1

Managed embedded video API

Choose Daily

Managed call and media operations minimize infrastructure ownership for embedded audio/video.

Verify: Confirm participant minutes, recording, streaming, SIP/add-ons, regions, data, support, and migration.3

Global realtime engagement

Choose Agora Video Calling

A broader global SDK and realtime engagement operating model fits the product.

Verify: Confirm regions, participant/concurrency units, recording, extensions, moderation, support, policy, and commercial terms.4

Boundary: This Task excludes consumer meeting products, telephony selection, prerecorded video hosting, and WebRTC tutorials.

Media infrastructure boundaries

Text chat, consumer meetings, programmable voice, and realtime media are separate decisions.

Cloud versus self-host
LiveKit Cloud and self-hosted LiveKit require separate reliability, cost, security, and operating Claims.2
Chat versus media
Text conversation state differs from media-plane quality, TURN, recording, and participant-minute operations.12
Embedded versus consumer meeting
This Task chooses product infrastructure rather than a complete meeting SaaS.3
Realtime media versus PSTN
SIP or phone features do not make this a programmable-voice selection Task.12

Official resources

Verify current product scope, policy, data, retention, delivery, regional, pricing, and account boundaries in first-party material before implementation.

DocumentationDaily documentation
DocumentationW3C WebRTC

Sources

Official product, standard, and policy sources supporting the bounded routes on this page.

  1. 1
    LiveKit documentation

    LiveKit · Accessed Official

  2. 2
    LiveKit self-hosting overview

    LiveKit · Accessed Official

  3. 3
    Daily documentation

    Daily · Accessed Official

  4. 4
    Agora Video Calling overview

    Agora · Accessed Official

  5. 5
    W3C WebRTC

    W3C · Accessed Official