Is there any open source alternative to talky.io? [closed]

Question

Is there any open source alternative to talky.io? where client code and all server side code is available.

Answer 1

I just double checked and it seems the priologic team are keeping tawk.com code behind a paywall, just like talky.io.

In the webRTC ecosystem, vendors either focus on

1. an application, and the Backend is hidden (think Skype, or bistri, even though bistri pivoted to propose an API as well.),

2. a PaaS and then both the sever code is hidden and you won't have an application, at best a demo, because they do not focus on any vertical and do no implement business logic (think AWS in general, or tokbox, temasys for webRTC)

3. propose consulting/app development and will provide a complete application most often open source, but keeping some key components (priologic: mobile SDK + app, &yet: app, algoworks, ...) behind a paywall. They usually team up with a Paas and or Hardware vendor to provide more compelte/scalable solution to their client (priologic/oracle, ...).

It is very unlikely, and I wouldn't know of any, that there were a vendor that would provide a full solution open source. It is still too complicated to have a non commercial entity provide one. The ones which do provide a full solution do so for a limited scope.

In any case, an application is always focussed on a use case. Even though the underlying infrastructure might be the same, and the BE/client API might be the same, an app for contact center, and app for social dating, and an app for conferencing will be quite different because they implement a quite different business logic and address quite different market. It is reasonable NOT to expect a full stack, but to have only the top most layer left to implement.

I put a list of vendors and products there, but it s a little bit raw. So here is a recipe to build a free/open-source solution, and then where to look to upgrade:

• mandatory: open source signaling server (easyrtc, signalmaster, peerjs-server, rtc.io, ...)
• mandatory: BE API (easyrtc, simplertc, peerjs, rtc.io respectively)
• optional but highly recommended: add the free turn server rfc5766, or the most advanced version "coTurn". Some of the open source server and library propose examples or how to to support this TURN server by yourself.
• optional: a client API that brings you closer to your use case,
• optional: a free plugin to support IE and Safari (temasys free plugin),
• optional: a media server if you need to host many-to-many calls or conferences (MCU or SFU) (licode, meteecho's janus, medooze, kurento, jitsi's videobridge)
• optional: a SIP gateway to connect to VoIP and/or pone by extension (PSTN). and ... that's about as far as you can go with open source / free libs today. You might hit a scalability problem quite fast depending on your traction.

A next step would be to get hosted servers, but it's not free anymore.

Separate servers:

• ICE/TURN/STUN: See xirsys/twilio for hosted solution,
• Media server: see dialogic, radysis, for hardware and meedoze, Jitsi, acano, pexip, openclove for software/hosted solutions,

Full Paas including all of the above:

• tokbox (beware of streamed minutes billing if you have large conferences, has recording and some features temasys does not have yet)
• temasys
• some of the media server vendors also market themselves as PaaS. I have not tested, so I can't comment or recommend.
• If you want to connect to SIP/phone, you will need different vendors as hither temasys nor tokbox provide interoperability today.

Answer 2

You could have a look at jitsi https://jitsi.org/, which is an opensource solution for private communication and also serves as a video conference tool for the browser.