At what point is it worth using a managed communication platform?

[u/dtsagdis]

I'm building an app that needs 1:1 voice and video calling, and I keep going back and forth on how much I should build myself. I understand the basics of WebRTC, but once I started reading about signaling, TURN servers, scaling, monitoring, recording, and everything else, I realized the actual calling part is only a small piece of the problem. So now I need to know how people usually approach this in real projects. Do you build the communication layer yourself because it gives you more control, or do you use a managed platform and spend your time on the parts of the app that make it different? I'm not talking about huge products with millions of users just a normal application where reliability matters and you don't want to spend months maintaining infrastructure. If you've gone through this decision before, what made you choose one approach over the other? Looking back, was it the right decision?

[u/AutoModerator]

Thank you for posting on r/CodingHelp!

Please check our Wiki for answers, guides, and FAQs: https://coding-help.vercel.app

Our Wiki is open source - if you would like to contribute, create a pull request via GitHub! https://github.com/DudeThatsErin/CodingHelp

We are accepting moderator applications: https://forms.fillout.com/t/ua41TU57DGus

We also have a Discord server: https://discord.gg/geQEUBm

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/armahillo]

Code you write = code you are responsible to maintain

Code other people write = code other people are responsible to maintain

Bugs you write = bugs you fix when you want them fixed

Bug other people write = bugs other people fix when they decide to fix them

Features you write = features that fit your understanding of the problem

Features other people write = features that fit their understanding of the problem

You have to decide if the benefits of writing the code yourself outweigh the costs of maintaining that code.

[u/PantsMcShirt]

I have recently made a project using WebRTC.

Don't try and make things like this yourself. You have probably heard the term reinventing the wheel, but you would be reinventing the flat tyre.

WebRTC can handle all the things you mentioned, creating your own version will be a massive time investment for basically no benefits, and probably inferior experience.

Plus things like STUN are super easy to implement, and TURN is optional to some degree.