What is LiveKit used for?

LiveKit is an open-source realtime server and SDK platform for building voice, video and AI-agent applications on WebRTC. It is a good fit for building video conferencing features, voice AI agents with realtime audio, and live streaming and interactive rooms.

Is LiveKit open source?

Yes. LiveKit is open source under the Apache-2.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at livekit/livekit and is written mainly in Go.

Yes. LiveKit is open source, so the software itself is free to use. A managed cloud version is also available.

Can I self-host LiveKit?

Yes. LiveKit can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.

What is LiveKit an alternative to?

LiveKit is an open-source alternative to Daily, Agora, Twilio and Vonage API. Other open-source alternatives to Daily include OpenVidu and Janus Gateway.

Is LiveKit actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to LiveKit was on 1 October 2026, and the latest release is v1.13.7, published on 14 September 2026. The project has 21k stars on GitHub.

LiveKit: open-source alternative to Daily, Agora, Twilio

About LiveKit

LiveKit is an open-source platform for realtime audio, video and data, aimed at developers building voice, video and AI agent applications. This repository holds the LiveKit server, a distributed WebRTC selective forwarding unit (SFU) written in Go on top of the Pion WebRTC implementation.

People, devices and AI agents join the same room as participants, and agents can be dispatched into rooms automatically or on demand. The server offers speaker detection, simulcast and selective subscription, uses JWT for authentication, and handles UDP, TCP and TURN connectivity. SDKs cover web, mobile, desktop, embedded and server environments, and a separate Agents framework in Python and Node.js supports code-first voice agents.

The server ships as a single binary and can be deployed with Docker or Kubernetes on your own infrastructure under the Apache 2.0 license. The vendor also runs LiveKit Cloud, a managed service that handles deployment and observability.

Key features

Distributed WebRTC SFU server written in Go
Rooms where people and AI agents meet
Simulcast and speaker detection
JWT authentication for participants
SDKs for web, mobile, desktop and server
Single binary, Docker or Kubernetes deployment

Good fit for

→Building video conferencing features
→Voice AI agents with realtime audio
→Live streaming and interactive rooms

Built with: Go
Tags: webrtc; sfu; video; voice-ai; realtime; media-server; ai-agents; golang

LiveKit: questions and answers

What is LiveKit used for?: LiveKit is an open-source realtime server and SDK platform for building voice, video and AI-agent applications on WebRTC. It is a good fit for building video conferencing features, voice AI agents with realtime audio, and live streaming and interactive rooms.
Is LiveKit open source?: Yes. LiveKit is open source under the Apache-2.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at livekit/livekit and is written mainly in Go.
Is LiveKit free?: Yes. LiveKit is open source, so the software itself is free to use. A managed cloud version is also available.
Can I self-host LiveKit?: Yes. LiveKit can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.
What is LiveKit an alternative to?: LiveKit is an open-source alternative to Daily, Agora, Twilio and Vonage API. Other open-source alternatives to Daily include OpenVidu and Janus Gateway.
Is LiveKit actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to LiveKit was on 1 October 2026, and the latest release is v1.13.7, published on 14 September 2026. The project has 21k stars on GitHub.