head to head · open source
webrtc vs Telephone
webrtc has 16,879 GitHub stars, 1,918 forks, 125 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. Telephone has 1,178 stars, 241 forks, 132 open issues and last shipped 24 days ago. webrtc leads on adoption by 1,333% (16,879 vs 1,178 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 | 2026-11-04 | 2026-10-13 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.9K | ⑂ 241 |
| 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 A pure Go implementation of the WebRTC API New Release Pion WebRTC v4.0.0 has been released! See the release notes to learn about new features and breaking changes. If you aren't able to upgrade yet check the tags for the latest v3 release. We would love your feedback! Please create GitHub issues or Join the Discord to follow development and speak with the maintainers. Usage Go Modules are mandatory for using Pion WebRTC. So make sure you set export GO111MODULE=on , and explicitly specify /v4 (or an earlier version) when importing. example applications contains code samples of common things people…
read the full webrtc overview →
About Telephone
Telephone is a VoIP SIP softphone for Mac. It allows you to make phone calls over the Internet or your company network. If your phone line supports SIP protocol, you can use it on your Mac instead of a physical phone anywhere you have a decent network connection. Building Opus Opus codec is optional. Download: $ curl O $ tar xzvf opus 1.3.1.tar.gz $ cd opus 1.3.1 Build and install: $ ./configure prefix=/path/to/Telephone/ThirdParty/Opus disable shared CFLAGS=' arch arm64 arch x86 64 Os mmacosx version min=15.6' $ make $ make install LibreSSL Download: $ curl O $ curl O $ gpg verify libressl 3.1.5.tar.gz.asc $…
read the full Telephone overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is webrtc or Telephone more popular?
webrtc has 16,879 GitHub stars and Telephone has 1,178. 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 (16,879 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Telephone if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.