3 ms·

As this is HN, could you elaborate on the technologies you used to build this platform?

feross 6y ago
Sure thing. The video and voice chat is powered by WebRTC. The getUserMedia API allows a browser to access the webcam and microphone of the device. I used my own simple-peer (https://github.com/feross/simple-peer https://github.com/feross/simple-peer) library to make WebRTC a bit easier to work with. The server is Node.js. I'm using Next.js for the first time on this project. I usually use a custom Express server for my projects. I'm a fan of several of Next.js's decisions -- it feels really nice to use, if a bit limiting sometimes. I use the 'ws' package (https://github.com/websockets/ws https://github.com/websockets/ws) to implement a WebSocket server which is used to help the peers get connected over WebRTC. Once peers are connected, all video and video is transferred directly in a peer-to-peer fashion. Except sometimes the connection can't be established, so to improve reliability of WebRTC you need to set up a TURN relay server for those situations. I used coturn (https://github.com/coturn/coturn https://github.com/coturn/coturn) for that. Lastly, I used Chakra UI (https://chakra-ui.com/ https://chakra-ui.com/) as my React component library. Really happy with how the easy the app has been to build. The most difficult part was getting it to work on Safari for iOS. I spent about 50% of the effort working around various bugs in the Safari media stack. https://twitter.com/feross/status/1263544033135038464 https://twitter.com/feross/status/1263544033135038464 Hope this was informative!
- putsjoe 6y ago
  That's great thanks, really informative. May I ask where your hosting this all?
  - feross 6y ago
    I'm a huge fan of Linode. I've been a customer for nearly 10 years. I wrote an review a long time ago here: https://feross.org/linode-vps-hosting-review/ https://feross.org/linode-vps-hosting-review/
- mettamage 6y ago
  How do you do stun, turn and signalling?
  - feross 6y ago
    I set up a TURN server using coturn. I deploy it on port 443, which seems to be allowed by the most networks. Signaling uses a custom WebSocket server I'm running.
- teah10 6y ago
  This is a really nice writeup. Thank you for this. I am looking into learning more about this space and debating between a voice service like Agora / Tokbox vs rolling my own to learn. I would love to see a technical blog post on your stack!
- mkl 6y ago
  Is this all running on one server? What resources does it take, for how many users? What percentage of users need the TURN server?

Sure thing. The video and voice chat is powered by WebRTC. The getUserMedia API allows a browser to access the webcam and microphone of the device. I used my own simple-peer (https://github.com/feross/simple-peer https://github.com/feross/simple-peer) library to make WebRTC a bit easier to work with. The server is Node.js. I'm using Next.js for the first time on this project. I usually use a custom Express server for my projects. I'm a fan of several of Next.js's decisions -- it feels really nice to use, if a bit limiting sometimes. I use the 'ws' package (https://github.com/websockets/ws https://github.com/websockets/ws) to implement a WebSocket server which is used to help the peers get connected over WebRTC. Once peers are connected, all video and video is transferred directly in a peer-to-peer fashion. Except sometimes the connection can't be established, so to improve reliability of WebRTC you need to set up a TURN relay server for those situations. I used coturn (https://github.com/coturn/coturn https://github.com/coturn/coturn) for that. Lastly, I used Chakra UI (https://chakra-ui.com/ https://chakra-ui.com/) as my React component library. Really happy with how the easy the app has been to build. The most difficult part was getting it to work on Safari for iOS. I spent about 50% of the effort working around various bugs in the Safari media stack. https://twitter.com/feross/status/1263544033135038464 https://twitter.com/feross/status/1263544033135038464 Hope this was informative!

putsjoe 6y ago
That's great thanks, really informative. May I ask where your hosting this all?
- feross 6y ago
  I'm a huge fan of Linode. I've been a customer for nearly 10 years. I wrote an review a long time ago here: https://feross.org/linode-vps-hosting-review/ https://feross.org/linode-vps-hosting-review/
mettamage 6y ago
How do you do stun, turn and signalling?
- feross 6y ago
  I set up a TURN server using coturn. I deploy it on port 443, which seems to be allowed by the most networks. Signaling uses a custom WebSocket server I'm running.
teah10 6y ago
This is a really nice writeup. Thank you for this. I am looking into learning more about this space and debating between a voice service like Agora / Tokbox vs rolling my own to learn. I would love to see a technical blog post on your stack!
mkl 6y ago
Is this all running on one server? What resources does it take, for how many users? What percentage of users need the TURN server?