head to head · open source
webrtc vs Telephone
webrtc has 16,789 GitHub stars, 1,889 forks, 125 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Telephone has 1,169 stars, 233 forks, 132 open issues and last shipped 13 days ago. webrtc leads on adoption by 1,336% (16,789 vs 1,169 stars). webrtc is written in Go under MIT; Telephone is written in Swift under GPL-3.0. webrtc has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, Telephone 20%. webrtc was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| webrtc | Telephone | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 17K | ★ 1.2K |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Go | Swift |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-09 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.9K | ⑂ 233 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick webrtc if
- You weight community size — 17K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Telephone if
- You want the Telephone feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Swift
- You evaluated both and Telephone fits your workflow better
About webrtc
Pion WebRTC is a pure Go implementation of the WebRTC API, aimed at Go developers who need real time audio, video, and data channels running inside their own applications rather than inside a browser tab or a C++ codebase.
read the full webrtc overview →
About Telephone
Telephone is a GPL 3.0 licensed VoIP SIP softphone for macOS, written in Swift, that lets anyone whose phone line speaks SIP place and answer calls over the Internet or a company network from a Mac instead of a physical phone.
read the full Telephone overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is webrtc or Telephone more popular?
webrtc has 16,789 GitHub stars and Telephone has 1,169. webrtc has the larger community by that measure.
Are webrtc and Telephone free?
Both are open source. webrtc is licensed under MIT and Telephone under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between webrtc and Telephone?
webrtc is written in Go and Telephone in Swift. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, webrtc or Telephone?
Choose webrtc if you want the larger community (16,789 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Telephone if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.