Janus is a free, open source WebRTC gateway from Meetecho used to build video conferencing, streaming, and SIP applications. See features and alternatives.
Janus is a free, open source WebRTC gateway server that gives developers low-level building blocks for real-time audio, video, and data communication rather than a finished conferencing product. It was created by Meetecho, an Italian company founded in 2009 as a spin-off of the University of Naples Federico II, and is led technically by Lorenzo Miniero, Meetecho's chairman and Janus's principal author.
Rather than shipping as an opinionated video conferencing app, Janus positions itself as infrastructure: developers build their own client applications and server logic around Janus's core WebRTC handling, using its modular plugin system to add exactly the functionality (conferencing, streaming, SIP, recording) that a given product needs.
The Janus core, written in C, handles ICE negotiation, DTLS/SRTP encryption, and RTP/RTCP media relay, exposing a JSON-based signaling API that browsers and other WebRTC clients use to talk to the server. Application behavior is implemented through official plugins: VideoRoom for multi-party video conferencing, AudioBridge for audio mixing, Streaming for one-to-many broadcast, Recordplay for session recording and playback, and SIP for bridging WebRTC clients into traditional telephony.
This plugin-based design gives Janus a small footprint that can run on modest hardware for lightweight deployments, while still scaling up to full cloud-based video infrastructure for larger production systems, making it a popular choice for teams that want fine-grained control over their real-time media stack.
Janus itself is entirely free and open source under the GNU General Public License, with no cost to download, self-host, or modify the software, and no usage-based fees regardless of scale.
Meetecho, the company behind Janus, generates revenue not from the software itself but from separate commercial services: consulting, custom plugin development, and support contracts for organizations that want expert help deploying and operating Janus in production.
Yes, Janus is free and open source under the GNU General Public License, with no licensing fees or usage caps.
Janus was created by Meetecho, an Italian company founded in 2009 by Alessandro Amirante, Lorenzo Miniero, and Tobia Castaldi, with Miniero as its principal author.
Janus is used to build custom real-time video conferencing, live streaming, webinar, and SIP-to-WebRTC bridging applications.
No, Janus is a low-level WebRTC gateway and infrastructure component; developers build their own client and server logic on top of it using its plugin system.
Yes, its official SIP plugin bridges WebRTC clients to traditional SIP telephony infrastructure.
Yes, Meetecho, the company behind Janus, offers commercial consulting, plugin development, and support contracts.