# Source: https://docs.livekit.io/home/get-started/intro-to-livekit.md

LiveKit docs › Get Started › Intro to LiveKit

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# Intro to LiveKit

> An overview of the LiveKit ecosystem.

LiveKit is an open source platform for developers building realtime media applications. It makes it easy to integrate audio, video, text, data, and AI models while offering scalable realtime infrastructure built on top of WebRTC.

## Why choose LiveKit?

LiveKit provides a complete solution for realtime applications with several key advantages:

- **Developer-friendly**: Consistent APIs across platforms with comprehensive and well-documented SDKs.
- **Open source**: No vendor lock-in with complete transparency and flexibility.
- **AI-native**: First-class support for integrating AI models into realtime experiences.
- **Scalable**: Can support anywhere from a handful of users to thousands of concurrent participants, or more.
- **Deployment flexibility**: Choose between fully-managed cloud or self-hosted options.
- **Private and secure**: End-to-end encryption, HIPAA-compliance, and more.
- **Built on WebRTC**: The most robust realtime media protocol for peak performance in any network condition.

### What is WebRTC?

[WebRTC](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/WebRTC_API) provides significant advantages over other options for building realtime applications such as websockets.

- **Optimized for media**: Purpose-built for audio and video with advanced codecs and compression algorithms.
- **Network resilient**: Performs reliably even in challenging network conditions due to UDP, adaptive bitrate, and more.
- **Broad compatibility**: Natively supported in all modern browsers.

LiveKit handles all of the complexity of running production-grade WebRTC infrastructure while extending support to mobile apps, backends, and telephony.

## LiveKit ecosystem

The LiveKit platform consists of these core components:

- **LiveKit Server**: An open-source media server that enables realtime communication between participants. Use LiveKit's fully-managed global cloud, or self-host your own.
- **LiveKit SDKs**: Full-featured web, native, and backend SDKs that make it easy to join rooms and publish and consume realtime media and data.
- **LiveKit Agents**: A framework for building realtime multimodal AI agents, with an extensive collection of plugins for nearly every AI provider.
- **Telephony**: A flexible SIP integration for inbound or outbound calling into any LiveKit room or agent session.
- **Egress**: Record and export realtime media from LiveKit rooms.
- **Ingress**: Ingest external streams (such as RTMP and WHIP) into LiveKit rooms.
- **Server APIs**: A REST API for managing rooms, and more. Includes SDKs and a CLI.

## Deployment options

LiveKit offers two deployment options for LiveKit Server to fit your needs:

- **LiveKit Cloud**: A fully-managed, globally distributed service with automatic scaling and high reliability. Trusted by companies of all sizes, from startups to enterprises.
- **Self-hosted**: Run the open source LiveKit server on your own infrastructure for maximum control and customization.

Both options provide the same core platform features and use the same SDKs.

## What can you build with LiveKit?

- **AI assistants**: Voice and video agents powered by any AI model.
- **Video conferencing**: Secure, private meetings for teams of any size.
- **Interactive livestreaming**: Broadcast to audiences with realtime engagement.
- **Robotics**: Integrate realtime video and powerful AI models into real-world devices.
- **Healthcare**: HIPAA-compliant telehealth with AI and humans in the loop.
- **Customer service**: Flexible and observable web, mobile, and telephone support options.

Whatever your use case, LiveKit makes it easy to build innovative, intelligent realtime applications without worrying about scaling media infrastructure. [Get started with LiveKit today](https://docs.livekit.io/home.md).

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This document was rendered at 2025-11-18T23:54:49.014Z.
For the latest version of this document, see [https://docs.livekit.io/home/get-started/intro-to-livekit.md](https://docs.livekit.io/home/get-started/intro-to-livekit.md).

To explore all LiveKit documentation, see [llms.txt](https://docs.livekit.io/llms.txt).