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Twilio releases open source video conferencing apps for iOS, Android and web

twilio.com

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Re: Twilio releases open source video conferencing apps for iOS, Android and web

#12

Ooooo, Jitsi has some competition?

Except with Jitsi you can self-host the entire back-end. These apps seem to depend on Twilio's infrastructure, as the READMEs mention needing a backend to generate Twilio tokens.

But they are open source (Apache licensed), so that can be changed.

Potentially, one could make a fork that can use either one’s own backend or Twillio’s, while Twillio’s own can only use Twillio’s.

Re: Twilio releases open source video conferencing apps for iOS, Android and web

#13
These are open source clients for a proprietary backend, which are no doubt still useful in a number of circumstances.

If you are comfortable with a more proprietary stack, then Google Hangouts / Zoom / others are likely to provide a better supported user experience.

If you would prefer a more libre end-to-end experience then Jitsi Meet may be an attractive alternative.

Re: Twilio releases open source video conferencing apps for iOS, Android and web

#15
post #11

Meh. With Jitsi I can self-host. In my view, that makes Jitsi better from a privacy perspective.

I've recently tried Jitsi but could not figure out how to do screen / desktop sharing. Is this possible at all, do you happen to know? (there were some sketchy-looking 3 star review plugins for Chrome, but they didn't really inspire confidence)

Re: Twilio releases open source video conferencing apps for iOS, Android and web

#16
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except with Jitsi you can self-host the entire back-end. These apps seem to depend on Twilio's infrastructure, as the READMEs mention needing a backend to generate Twilio tokens.

But they are open source (Apache licensed), so that can be changed. Potentially, one could make a fork that can use either one’s own backend or Twillio’s, while Twillio’s own can only use Twillio’s.

Is it trivial to write a backend that will replace the functionality in Twilio's backend?

Re: Twilio releases open source video conferencing apps for iOS, Android and web

#17
post #11

Meh. With Jitsi I can self-host. In my view, that makes Jitsi better from a privacy perspective.

I've recently tried Jitsi but could not figure out how to do screen / desktop sharing. Is this possible at all, do you happen to know? (there were some sketchy-looking 3 star review plugins for Chrome, but they didn't really inspire confidence)

There is a button in the bottom left.

Re: Twilio releases open source video conferencing apps for iOS, Android and web

#18
post #13

These are open source clients for a proprietary backend, which are no doubt still useful in a number of circumstances. If you are comfortable with a more proprietary stack, then Google Hangouts / Zoom / others are likely to provide a better supported user experience. If you would prefer a more libre end-to-end experience then Jitsi Meet may be an attractive alternative.

> Google Hangouts

> likely to provide a better supported user experience.

Yeah, about that: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/01/the-great-google-han...

Re: Twilio releases open source video conferencing apps for iOS, Android and web

#19
post #11

Meh. With Jitsi I can self-host. In my view, that makes Jitsi better from a privacy perspective.

The problem with Jitsi is that the video streams have to pass through the videobridge. That means paying for ingress and egress network cost if you are on AWS .

Re: Twilio releases open source video conferencing apps for iOS, Android and web

#20
post #11

Meh. With Jitsi I can self-host. In my view, that makes Jitsi better from a privacy perspective.

The problem with Jitsi is that the video streams have to pass through the videobridge. That means paying for ingress and egress network cost if you are on AWS .

It detects if two participants are in the same network and then uses p2p.
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