Top 7 Picks Of WebRTC Alternatives For 2024

Krishi Shivasangaran Published On April 22nd, 2024 Tech Talks

“Looking for an ideal WebRTC alternative for enhanced feature set, simple integration, and complete customization? Then this guide is for you.”

WebRTC, since its inception in 2011, has become a worldwide tech genie for fostering real-time communication. Plus, its ability to enable video and voice chats without using any plugins or third-party software and its open-source nature, has gained tremendous popularity amidst the developer community.

However, there are some of the shortcomings of WebRTC like delayed integration, unsecured network firewalls, complex architecture, and other privacy concerns that made businesses look for alternatives. 

And that’s where we step in, by bringing some of the top WebRTC alternatives that offer promising scalability, security, and customization capabilities.

So, Why Should You Look For A WebRTC Alternative?

Though WebRTC has become a go-to solution for most communication providers for its open-source ability, its challenges force enterprises to migrate to a better solution. Here are some of the reasons why businesses seek alternatives:

• Complex Structure: Only a skilled developer will be able to implement the WebRTC technology in any application as it requires a detailed understanding of the concepts.

• Compatibility Issues: Though the WebRTC protocol is mostly supported by all modern browsers, some make its work impractical.

• Firewalls & NAT: The protocol still comes as a difficult option to handle firewalls and Network Address Translators of corporate networks.

• Reduced Quality: By using this protocol, users have complained about issues about poor audio and video quality in less optimal network conditions thereby impacting the overall user experience. 

• Privacy Concerns: As the protocol is built around peer-to-peer architecture, this poses a risk for privacy concerns. Hence, developers need to implement additional security mechanisms like E2E and more.

• Scalability: The protocol is not built to scale with the growing user numbers. As a result of which the need to deliver optimal performance is not met thus affecting user experience.

• Absence of Signaling: WebRTC does not have a built-in signaling protocol and developers must implement one, leading to increased complexities and inconsistencies. 

Therefore, it is because of these drawbacks, that businesses are on the lookout for some of the alternatives. 

Top 7 WebRTC Alternatives To Look for In 2024

Here are some of the best picks of WebRTC variants, including MirrorFly, Twilio, Apphitect, Agora, Vonage, VideoSDK, and EnableX, that offer industry-best real-time communication features for various use cases like healthcare, e-learning, e-commerce, and more. 

1. MirrorFly

MirrorFly, undoubtedly stands as one of the best WebRTC alternatives in offering high scalability, low latency, and quick integration of video, voice, and chat capabilities to any app. 

Plus, with us, you can build a completely customizable solution, without referring to MirrorFly anywhere in your web or mobile app. Along with these, let us take a look at some of the other exquisites like:

Key Features

• 500+ advanced call and chat features
• 100% customizations
• White-label solution
• Topic-based chats
• Omnichannel communication solution
• 1:1 and group video, voice chats
• On-premise hosting/On-cloud
• Hire tech developers
• High scalability and security

Pricing

• MirrorFly offers two pricing solutions- SaaS and SaaP or self-hosted models to developers.

Their SaaS Pricing:

• Basic plan starts from $0.08 per user per month
• Premium plan starts from $0.2 per user per month

Their SaaP pricing:

Comes as a one-time license fee that can be customized based on features.

2. Twilio

Twilio is one of the CPaaS replacements for WebRTC helping businesses to add real-time chat features and VoIP capabilities to their projects or apps. 

Besides these, developers prefer this solution to build AI-powered IVRs into their apps. 

Key Features

• Programmable voice APIs
• Automatic scaling
• Multi-channel communication
• Chat, SMS, video conferencing
• Push notifications
• Data streaming
• Three-way calling
• Voicemail

Pricing

Twilio bills differently for making and receiving calls. While it charges $0.042 per minute for outbound calls, it bills $0.013 per minute for all inbounds.

3. Apphitect

Apphitect comes to the market as one of the best WebRTC substitutes for its customizable nature. Yes, next to MirrorFly, it is the only Apphitect that offers 100% customization on all its features.

So businesses who wish to personalize their chat themes or layouts or want to add branding elements can simply opt for this provider and launch your app easily. Plus, when it comes to security, they are built with enterprise-grade E2E encryptions.

Key Features

• Complete ownership
• Instant messaging
• Voice and video calls
• Low latency
• High scalability and security
• On-premise hosting
• Topic-based chats
• White-label solution

Pricing:

Apphitect offers developers both subscription and pay-as-you-go models to help businesses of varied sizes.

4. Agora

With a developer-friendly documentation and SDK suite in the market, Agora stands tall when it comes to offering exceptional real-time communication features.

From voice and video to chats and VoIP, Agora’s APIs can be integrated into any tech stack or businesses of any size. And their latency is by far the best in the market thus making it the WebRTC variant, worth trying.

Key Features

• Called ID
• Call waiting
• Call forwarding and transfer
• Video conferencing
• Auto attendant
• DND modes

Pricing

Agora’s pricing plan starts from $499 per month for the first 5000 users.

5. Vonage

Vonage serves as an ideal WebRTC alternative in offering flexible and highly scalable messaging, voice, and video calling capabilities across contact centers and different use cases.

Additionally, it offers a great level of customization on various video calling effects. However, scaling comes as a problem when connections extend 2000, as it automatically switches to CDNs leading to increased latency.

Key Features

• Voice communication 
• Video conferencing
• 1:1 and group video chats
• Messaging and chats
• SMS and MMS
• Developer-friendly APIs
• High scalability

Pricing

• Vonage’s pricing is based on number of participants and minutes catered. 
• The basic plan starts at $9.99 per month with a free 2000 mins per minute.
• Recording services start at $0.010 per minute.
• HLS streaming is billed at $0.004 per minute.

6. VideoSDK

Yet another alternative that is known for implementing sturdy live video conferencing and audio calling capabilities to any platform is VideoSDK API.

Their integration is easy, requires minimal effort, and comes packed with great flexibility, scalability, and control for developers. And offers global infrastructure support for any use case with zero maintenance or downtime.

Key Features

• Pre-built and custom integration
• Real-time audio and video
• Live streaming SDKs
• Live webinars
• Unlimited parallel room
• Support for 300 attendees in a room
• Customizable template layouts

Pricing

• Besides offering 10,000 free minutes, their video call APIs start from $0.003 per participant per minute.
• Audio calls are billed at $0.0006 per minute
• Offer Cloud recordings at $0.0006 per minute
• RTMP output is billed at $0.030 per minute

7. EnableX

Enablex is one of the CPaaS platforms that act as a robust WebRTC variance in offering live videos, emotion AI, voice and SMS, and impeccable omni-channel communication solutions.

And being developed for developers and businesses, its versatile set of collaboration tools helps create carrier-grade engaging platforms.

Key Features

• Voice and video chats
• Real-time messaging
• Screen sharing
• Recording and playback
• Interactive broadcasting
• Friendly- APIs and SDKs

Pricing

• Enablex offers both Pay-as-you-go and custom pricing solutions that fit well into the budget. 
• Video calling API – $0.004 per participant per minute
• Voice calling API (Singapore mobile number) – $0.0302 per minute
• The advanced features are charged separately.

Wrapping Up!

To conclude, we hope we gave you a fair share of knowledge on the different alternatives of WebRTC. 

We covered the top 7 WebRTC service providers:

1. MirrorFly
2. Twilio
3. Apphitect
4. Agora
5. Vonage
6. VideoSDK
7. EnableX

From the quick integration and 100% customization capabilities of MirrorFly to the scalability aspect of Apphitect to the versatility of Videosdk, we have listed alternatives from all classes and types.

So now it’s time for you to do your homework and find the provider that best fits your business goals and needs. 

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