what is the difference between Agora and WebRTC (Web Real Time Communication)?

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I want to know the real difference between Agora and Webrtc? What did I know Agora provides you SDK for different platforms for video, audio calls, and chats and it charges you accordingly, it provides 10,000 minutes free monthly and charges you if you exceed, Webrtc is a Web Real-Time communication that provides you different API to implememt in your app or web to have video, audio or chats in free & unlimited? Am I Right? If yes then why people would use agora and pay money when they have free WebRTC with unlimited audio videos calls and chats for a long time? pls guide your help will be appreciated

I do not know much about WebRTC pls help me out thanks in advance

agora.io webrtc video-streaming audio
2 Answers

This is similar to saying that you can use HTML5 to build websites but still people pay AWS to host machines, databases, storage, application logic, etc.

WebRTC is a web technology that is part of HTML5 and is implemented by all modern browser. To make it work, you will need to create websites, install servers, pay for media traffic, optimize your code - you can do it on your own (and pay the cloud hosting vendors for their service) or you can use a third party that offers that as a managed service for you - like Agora and others that do it, where you end up paying to them for their efforts.

To decide which approach is for you, I can suggest two things:

  1. Build a simple demo app with WebRTC. One where you understand what the code does. If you are happy with it and truly understand what goes on - make the decision if you want to continue in that route or use a 3rd party
  2. Just go use Agora or other 3rd parties and pay them. WebRTC isn't rocket science but it isn't simple either
user_156370

Agora and similar APIs provide a layer on top of WebRTC. They aim to make it easier for developers to leverage WebRTC capabilities without having to build everything themselves from scratch.

Devs who are fine getting into the nitty gritty of WebRTC can indeed do everything themselves, like you say. I recommend trying it! But often, a team or single dev might just want a straightforward way to integrate video/audio into their product without necessarily knowing what an SFU is, how a TURN server works, how to ensure certain data privacy standards, etc. So these kinds of APIs help make WebRTC easier to leverage by doing most of the heavy lifting and letting people focus on all the other important parts of their app. Pricing-wise, there are a few different very good API options that might be more or less affordable depending on the use case.

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