Loading SaaS profile...
As of 2026
Utilities & System Tools
An open-source, end-to-end stack for building real-time audio and video applications with scalable, high-quality media infrastructure.
Overview
LiveKit is a comprehensive infrastructure platform that simplifies the development of real-time audio and video applications. It provides the essential building blocks—including programmable media servers, cross-platform SDKs, and global networking—to allow developers to build features like video conferencing, live streaming, and voice-to-voice AI interaction. By offering a self-hostable or cloud-managed stack based on WebRTC, LiveKit enables businesses to scale their real-time media workloads while maintaining complete control over performance and data privacy.
Founded year: 2021
Founder: Russ Danner, David Zhao
Team size: 11-50
Popularity: The standard open-source platform for modern real-time media
HQ: San Francisco, California, USA
Status: Active
Funding status: Series A
Revenue source: Subscriptions & Usage Fees
Customer type: B2B
Funding: $20M+
Pricing: Freemium
Tech stack: Go, WebRTC, Elixir, Redis, gRPC
Platform: Web • Mobile • Desktop
Integrations: OpenAI, AssemblyAI, Deepgram, Redis, Kubernetes
Founder story
LiveKit was founded by Russ Danner and David Zhao to address the fragmentation and complexity in the WebRTC ecosystem. They built an open-source, scalable foundation that allows developers to stop worrying about media server orchestration and focus entirely on building high-quality communication experiences.
What it does
- Provides high-performance SFU (Selective Forwarding Unit) media servers for real-time traffic
- Offers robust, cross-platform SDKs for Web, iOS, Android, Flutter, React Native, and Unity
- Includes built-in media processing capabilities for transcription, recording, and vision AI
- Features a global edge network to ensure low-latency media delivery across regions
- Provides administrative APIs for managing rooms, participants, and stream metadata
Who it's for
- Software Developers and Engineers
- Product teams building communication tools
- AI companies building voice-to-voice agents
- Live-streaming and remote collaboration platforms
Why it works
- Reduces the massive complexity of managing WebRTC at scale
- Offers the flexibility of both self-hosted and cloud-managed infrastructure options
- Enables seamless integration with modern generative AI models for real-time agents
- Provides superior performance and stability compared to custom-built WebRTC solutions
- Allows for granular control over media quality and network optimization
Growth strategies
- Becoming the default media infrastructure layer for real- time AI and LLM agents
- Expanding open- source community adoption through transparent documentation and tutorials
- Targeting enterprise companies migrating away from proprietary legacy communication platforms
- Offering specialized plugins for AI agent ecosystems and media analytics
Alternatives
Comparison overview
- Unlike proprietary platforms like Agora or Twilio which are 'black boxes' for media traffic, LiveKit is an open-core platform that offers the same scalability with the added benefit of self-hosting and full transparency, making it the preferred choice for developers who require deep architectural control.