Vuisio vs LiveKit: which WebRTC SFU for your project?
Vuisio and LiveKit are two open source WebRTC SFUs, and the comparison almost stops there. One is a complete video conferencing product, the other a toolkit for developers. One is French, the other American. One targets organisations that want sovereign video conferencing, the other targets engineers building real-time applications. This comparison goes through each dimension so you can choose according to your project.
A finished product or a toolkit: the fundamental distinction
Before comparing architecture or performance, the right question has to be asked: are you looking for a video conferencing tool ready to use, or for infrastructure on which to build your own application?
LiveKit is a developer toolkit. It is an SFU server written in Go, with SDKs for more than twelve platforms (JavaScript, React, Swift, Android, Flutter, Python, Go, Rust, Unity, C++, ESP32 and others) and a framework for AI voice agents (LiveKit on GitHub). LiveKit does not provide a video conferencing interface: it provides the parts to build one. Its main use case in 2026 is infrastructure for AI voice agents, and it notably powers the voice mode of ChatGPT, according to UsagePricing.
Vuisio is a complete video conferencing product. The Rust SFU, the web client (Next.js), the chat, file sharing, moderation, recording, the lobby, the whiteboard and the BigBlueButton-compatible API are all included (docs.vuis.io). A user opens a link and joins a meeting, without anyone having written a line of code.
| Criterion | LiveKit | Vuisio |
|---|---|---|
| Nature of the product | Infrastructure / developer toolkit | Complete video conferencing product |
| User interface | Not included (to build with the SDKs) | Included (Next.js web client, lobby, whiteboard) |
| Target user | Developers, WebRTC engineers | Organisations, universities, companies, hosting providers |
| Main use case in 2026 | AI voice agents, bespoke real-time applications | Meetings, online courses, webinars, consultations |
| Time to a first meeting | Days to weeks (development required) | Minutes (interactive installer or free sovereign cloud) |
Who controls the project?
| Criterion | LiveKit | Vuisio |
|---|---|---|
| Vendor | LiveKit, Inc. (San Jose, California) | Geezot (France) |
| Founded | 2021, by Russell D Sa and David Zhao | France |
| Funding | 182.5 million USD of venture capital (Altimeter, Index Ventures, Salesforce Ventures, Redpoint) (PitchBook, CB Insights) | Own funds |
| Valuation | 1 billion USD (Series C, January 2026, UsagePricing) | Privately held |
| Licence | Apache 2.0 (GitHub) | AGPL 3.0 (open core) (docs.vuis.io) |
| Subject to the CLOUD Act | Yes (American company) | No |
| Official cloud | LiveKit Cloud (USA, worldwide) | Sovereign cloud (France) |
LiveKit raised 182.5 million dollars from American funds and reached a billion-dollar valuation in January 2026 (UsagePricing). It is a dynamic, well-funded project, and it is also a project controlled by an American company subject to American law. The Apache 2.0 licence lets you use it freely, self-hosting included, but control of the roadmap stays in San Jose.
How the SFU architectures compare
Both projects make the same basic choice: an SFU that relays streams without re-encoding them. The languages, the concurrency models and the approaches to scaling differ.
| Criterion | LiveKit | Vuisio |
|---|---|---|
| Language | Go (LiveKit docs) | Rust (docs.vuis.io) |
| WebRTC library | Pion (Go) | str0m (Rust) |
| Concurrency model | Go goroutines (garbage collector, possible GC pauses) | Natively multi-threaded, one UDP socket per thread, bounded queues (docs.vuis.io) |
| Transcoding | No (pure SFU) | No (raw RTP relay) |
| Signalling | WebSocket plus Protobuf | gRPC (Protobuf) |
| Extending it | Client SDKs (12+ languages), AI Agents framework | Rust SDK (traits, gRPC hooks), declarative modules (docs.vuis.io) |
| Scaling | Horizontal through Redis (multi-node) (LiveKit docs) | Natively multi-threaded (optimised single node) |
| External dependency | Redis (multi-node), TURN optional | Redis optional (persistence), no mandatory dependency |
| Recording | Egress: a separate service, server-side transcoding | Native module: MP4 recording with no external transcoding |
| External ingestion | Ingress: RTMP, WHIP, video files | Not applicable (a video conferencing product, no broadcast ingestion) |
The Go versus Rust choice is structural. Go offers a gentle learning curve and a rich ecosystem (goroutines, a built-in garbage collector), which makes community contributions easier. Rust removes the garbage collector and its pauses, giving full control over memory and a predictable footprint under sustained load. The Vuisio documentation describes memory profiling work (perf, bytehound) that eliminated all memory growth under load (docs.vuis.io).
What sovereignty looks like in practice
| Criterion | LiveKit | Vuisio |
|---|---|---|
| Official cloud hosting | LiveKit Cloud (USA and worldwide, several regions) | Sovereign cloud (France only) |
| Region pinning | Available on the Scale tier (500 USD per month) (LiveKit pricing) | France by default, no choice needed |
| HIPAA compliance | Scale tier only (500 USD per month) | AES-256-GCM encryption at rest, hosting in France |
| Default STUN | Not documented (configurable) | European Nextcloud (stun.nextcloud.com:443) (docs.vuis.io) |
| Default TLS | Not documented (configurable) | Actalis (European) by default (docs.vuis.io) |
| User account | JWT required (tokens generated server side) | None. An ephemeral numeric identifier (docs.vuis.io) |
| Cookies | Depends on the developer’s implementation | None imposed by the core (docs.vuis.io) |
| Data at rest | No built-in encryption (left to the developer) | AES-256-GCM, key supplied by the operator (docs.vuis.io) |
The key point: with LiveKit, sovereignty depends entirely on what the developer builds on top. The SFU itself is neutral, but everything touching user management, encryption at rest, cookies and tracking falls to the application. With Vuisio, those choices are made by default: no account, no cookie, encrypted data, hosting in France.
What it costs
| Criterion | LiveKit | Vuisio |
|---|---|---|
| Self-hosting | Free (Apache 2.0), infrastructure at your expense | Free (AGPL 3.0), lighter infrastructure |
| Cloud: free tier | Build: 5,000 WebRTC minutes, 1,000 agent minutes per month (LiveKit pricing) | Sovereign cloud: unlimited length and participants, meeting features included |
| Cloud: paid tier | Ship: 50 USD per month plus usage. Scale: 500 USD per month plus usage | Pro: €29 per host per month (MP4 recording) |
| Usage-based billing | Yes: 0.0004 USD per WebRTC minute, 0.01 USD per agent minute, 0.003 USD per SIP minute | No: a flat fee per host, unlimited participants |
| Cost predictability | Complex (five simultaneous billing dimensions: agent, WebRTC, inference, SIP, bandwidth) (UsagePricing) | Simple: free, or €29 per host per month |
| Self-hosted support | Community documentation, no official support | Dedicated support (on-premise plan) |
LiveKit’s pricing is designed for high-volume applications, with five billing dimensions at once. UsagePricing notes that this complexity makes a monthly bill hard to forecast without a calculator. Vuisio takes the opposite view: a fixed price per host, independent of the number of participants and of the volume of minutes.
When to choose which
Choose LiveKit if you are a team of developers building a bespoke real-time application (an AI voice agent, a telemedicine platform, a custom collaboration tool), you have the WebRTC skills to integrate the SDKs, and European sovereignty is not a blocking criterion.
Choose Vuisio if you are an organisation (a university, a public body, a company, a hospital) that needs a video conferencing tool ready to use, sovereign, self-hostable or in a French cloud, compatible with Moodle, with no development required and no usage-based billing.
The two can also coexist: LiveKit as infrastructure for your AI applications, Vuisio as the video conferencing solution for your meetings and your courses.
In summary
LiveKit and Vuisio share a philosophy (open source, an SFU without transcoding, WebRTC) but answer fundamentally different needs. LiveKit is an engine: powerful, flexible, but you have to build the car around it. Vuisio is the car: you turn the key and drive, with a Rust engine designed to use little and stay under your control. If your need is to replace an existing video conferencing tool rather than build one, our comparison of BigBlueButton alternatives covers the turnkey solutions.
If your need is “I want sovereign video meetings, now”, try Vuisio free. If your need is “I want to build my own real-time application”, LiveKit is an excellent piece of infrastructure, bearing in mind that it is American and venture funded.
Frequently asked questions
Is LiveKit a video conferencing tool?
No. LiveKit is SFU infrastructure and a framework for AI voice agents, not a turnkey video conferencing product. It supplies the building blocks (SDKs, media server, API) on which a developer builds their own application. Vuisio is a finished product: interface, moderation, chat, recording, all included.
Is LiveKit subject to the CLOUD Act?
LiveKit is published by an American company based in San Jose, California, funded by 182 million dollars of American venture capital. LiveKit Cloud is operated from the United States. When self-hosted, the software (Apache 2.0) escapes the CLOUD Act, but the project remains controlled by an American entity.
Does Vuisio use the same technology as LiveKit?
Both are WebRTC SFUs, but their technical choices diverge. LiveKit is written in Go with Pion (a Go WebRTC library). Vuisio is written in Rust with str0m. Both relay streams without re-encoding them, but Rust gives memory control without a garbage collector.
Can LiveKit be used for sovereign video conferencing?
It is possible when self-hosted, but you have to develop the entire user interface, the moderation, the chat, the recording and the room management. Vuisio provides all of that natively, hosted in France, with a sovereign cloud ready to use.
How much does LiveKit Cloud cost?
LiveKit Cloud bills by usage: 0.0004 to 0.0005 USD per WebRTC minute, 0.01 USD per AI agent minute. Tiers run from free (Build) to 500 USD per month (Scale). HIPAA compliance and region pinning are only available on the Scale tier.
Does Vuisio have SDKs like LiveKit?
Vuisio exposes a Rust SDK with a module contract (traits, gRPC hooks) that lets you build extensions. But the approach differs: LiveKit targets developers building their own application, Vuisio targets organisations that want a video conferencing product ready to use and extensible.
Complete guide : BigBlueButton alternatives in 2026: the comparison
