Ask HN: What's the most cost-effective TURN solution?

2 points by sp527 8y ago ↗ HN

I'm scoping out solutions and debating between using Twilio/Plivo or an open source solution like https://github.com/coturn/coturn.

Does anyone have experience with the cost dynamics of one vs the other? I imagine it has to be cheaper to run our own TURN servers, but I want to make sure it's worth it (cost savings significantly outweigh the setup overhead and such, in the long-term) before locking into that approach.

Context: implementing P2P VoIP in a mobile app, probably over WebRTC. We probably won't expect too much load at first (max 100 active concurrent calls), so I imagine Twilio might even be cheaper overall, at first.

Any help/resources/etc would be much appreciated. Thanks!

3 comments

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manglav 8y ago ↗

Why do you think you'd be locked in? To switch from twilio to your own service, it's one LOC client side, and setting up your server. I don't see what would lock you in. If you need to host your own TURN server, you need to host it somewhere where bandwidth is cheap, so NOT aws. You can any lightsail, DO, etc. However, with a VPS, you're subject to instabilities from other users, so you may want to get your own instances from Hetzner/OVH. This is a lot of overhead as you see, so only do it if it's worth it.

auganov 8y ago ↗

Are you going to need other WebRTC (or similar) infrastructure? For many use cases, you'll want the TURN server to be colocated with the rest of your infrastructure.

danieka 8y ago ↗

Hi,

Running your own TURN server isn't that difficult and you should remember that most calls (80-95%) don't need TURN (packet relay) but only use STUN (IP discovery). So one small TURN server should have no trouble handling 100 concurrent calls.

There are AMIs if you use AWS, and if you're interested I can send over the config files we use. We use coturn. My email is in my profile.

Shameless plug: I'm a co-founder of EagleDial, we specialize in calls over WebRTC with built in payments either per minute or per call. We have white label solutions.