python-webrtc README

The project's README from github.com/MarshalX/python-webrtc. As one markdown file: README.md.

Python WebRTC logo

Chrome's WebRTC engine, with the browser API, in Python.

Documentation • Quickstart • Examples • Benchmarks • PyPI

A browser page sends its camera to a Python server, which sends it back in grayscale and answers a chat message over a data channel

Python WebRTC binds libwebrtc M152, the engine inside Chrome, and exposes it through the W3C APIs you already know from the browser: RTCPeerConnection, data channels, tracks, WebCodecs frames, encoded transforms and stats. Talk to browsers, servers, SFUs and AI agents peer-to-peer, with no vendor service in between.

pip install wrtc

Coming from aiortc? Install wrtc[aiortc], change from aiortc to from webrtc.aiortc, and your code runs on Chrome's engine. See Migrating from aiortc.

If you know it in JavaScript, you know it in Python

BrowserPython
const pc = new RTCPeerConnection();
const channel = pc.createDataChannel('chat');
channel.onopen = () => channel.send('Hello!');
channel.onmessage = (e) => console.log(e.data);
pc.onicecandidate = (e) => signaling.send(e.candidate);

const offer = await pc.createOffer();
await pc.setLocalDescription(offer);
signaling.send(pc.localDescription);

pc = webrtc.RTCPeerConnection()
channel = pc.create_data_channel('chat')
channel.on('open', lambda e: channel.send('Hello!'))
channel.on('message', lambda e: print(e.data))
pc.on('icecandidate', lambda e: signaling.send(e.candidate))

offer = await pc.create_offer()
await pc.set_local_description(offer)
signaling.send(pc.local_description)

Names follow the specifications in snake_case, and the camelCase originals (createOffer) work too. Enums compare equal to the strings of the specification, dictionaries are typed dataclasses, and everything is asyncio.

Highlights

How it compares

Python WebRTC aiortc LiveKit SDK GStreamer webrtcbin
Engine libwebrtc (Chrome's) own, in Python libwebrtc own, in C
Connects peer-to-peer to any WebRTC endpoint ✅ ✅ ❌ needs a LiveKit server ✅
Browser API (RTCPeerConnection, createOffer, …) ✅ similar ❌ rooms ❌ GObject signals
Media path native Python native native
VP9 and AV1 ✅ ❌ ✅ ✅
pip install on Linux, macOS and Windows ✅ ✅ ✅ ❌ no Linux wheels

Against aiortc, it opens connections 7.3–8.3x faster, moves 7.7–14.6x more data through a data channel and spends less CPU on audio. See the benchmarks, which also measure Pion, libdatachannel and webrtc-rs.

The full comparison, and when another library is the better choice: Choosing a Python WebRTC library.

Codecs

Linux and Windows macOS
Video VP8, VP9, AV1, H.264 with OpenH264 VP8, VP9, AV1, H.264 with VideoToolbox
Audio Opus, G.722, G.711 Opus, G.722, G.711

No H.264 implementation is built into the package. webrtc.openh264.install() downloads Cisco's binary on the user's device, under Cisco's patent license.

Platforms

Prebuilt wheels for CPython 3.9–3.15, and free-threaded 3.14t and 3.15t, on:

Linux macOS Windows
x86_64 and aarch64 (glibc 2.27+, manylinux) 13+, Intel and Apple Silicon x64

Elsewhere pip builds it from sources with CMake and a C++20 compiler. See CONTRIBUTING.md.

Examples

Complete programs, ready to copy. The ones with dependencies declare them inline, so uv run needs nothing installed.

uv run https://raw.githubusercontent.com/MarshalX/python-webrtc/main/examples/janus_streaming.py

Status

Pre-1.0: the API follows the specifications, but compatibility between versions isn't guaranteed until 1.0.0. See the changelog.

Getting help

Contributing

Contributions of any size are welcome. CONTRIBUTING.md covers the development setup, building from sources, releasing and updating libwebrtc.

License

Python WebRTC is published under the BSD 3-Clause License.

python-webrtc (MarshalX/python-webrtc)

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151 ·GitHub
Python-webrtc

Chrome's WebRTC engine, with the browser API, in Python.

Creator
MarshalX
Size
17.3 MB
Stars
151
Updated
CommitOct 24Releasev0.1.0Oct 24
Age
4y
Commits · 90 Days