MoQ vs WebRTC

This page compares MoQ with WebRTC, the dominant protocol for conferencing.

Requirements

Boring stuff first. Conferencing protocols need to:

• Support any number of participants (publish and subscribe)
• Support <100ms latency
• Support a wide range of devices
• Support a wide range of networks

Some optional features:

• Support browsers (aka WebRTC)
• End-to-end encryption.
• Peer-to-peer connections.

Existing Protocols

• WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communication) - The dominant protocol for conferencing.
• RTP (Real-Time Transport Protocol) - The core protocol within WebRTC.

While this might make WebRTC seem super dominant, the reality is a little bit more nuanced.

Almost every conferencing service tries to force their native app on you. Zoom, Teams, Discord, etc. WebRTC is mandatory on the browser, but it's not mandatory for native apps. A service like Discord uses a custom RTP stack between native apps and only uses WebRTC for browser compatibility.

The only exception is Google Meet. Google maintains and controls libwebrtc, the core WebRTC implementation in browsers. If Google wants a feature, then they add it to WebRTC, while every other service has to find a workaround.