Should ion-sfu (and Ion) be archived and alternatives suggested

[Sean-Der]

This repo hasn't seen a commit since 2022. Should we mark it as deprecated and suggest alternatives to people?

I still have people joining the Pion slack asking questions about ion-sfu. I worry they are adopting software that isn't serving them best.

If someone has an interest in restarting this project I would love too see that!

[Sean-Der]

@OrlandoCo @adwpc What do you think?

[OrlandoCo]

@Sean-Der Hello Sean, sorry this years has been crazy with lots of work and I think I will not have enough resources to keep working on ion-sfu, I would be happy to maybe fork and keep an updated SFU only version since all the ion stuff adds complexity and block some design changes and I have never worked with it, as an alternative I would always suggest to point users to livekit.

[Sean-Der]

My vote is that we point users to a list of 'Maintained SFUs'. LiveKit is fantastic, but I want to allow users to evaluate all their options!

Maybe we put something in https://github.com/pion/webrtc Wiki? I can start a 'Pion WebRTC SFU/Server Recommendations'. We can try to make an objective article to give users the best options.

[adwpc]

@Sean-Der You are right. LiveKit is fantastic. I suggest people to use it too.

[shushenghong]

livekit is too large now, ion-sfu is a module can integrated with my own projects, is there any alternative libs?

[Sean-Der]

@shushenghong https://github.com/inlivedev/sfu is promising. It has the same design/patterns behind ion-sfu.

Gives you a sfu as an API, not meant to be a feature complete server.

[Sean-Der]

@adwpc @OrlandoCo Could I get access to the ion repos and I can mark things as archived?

I would love if someone would adopt/start working on ion again. Until that happens we need to warn users it isn't being updated though!

[OrlandoCo]

@Sean-Der I was just a contributor, I can give you access, but would prefer @adwpc to do it since he is the actual owner of the project.

[shushenghong]

@shushenghong https://github.com/inlivedev/sfu is promising. It has the same design/patterns behind ion-sfu.

Gives you a sfu as an API, not meant to be a feature complete server.

thank you :)

[jech]

@shushenghong:

livekit is too large now, ion-sfu is a module can integrated with my own projects, is there any alternative libs?

Please consider Galene. It's 12000 lines of pure Go code, and should be easy to adapt to your needs.

[sideDesert]

Hi, is there any conclusive end to this? I have spent two days on this repository just to realize it isn't being maintained T-T. Can we please have a SFU Recommendations on the pion Wiki, it will be such a time saver for people looking to integrate an SFU in their applications

[Sean-Der]

@OrlandoCo How you feel recommending Galene, LiveKit or Broadcast Box. I don't know of any other active Go WebRTC server projects? It would be nice if we could update READMEs/documentation. If you want to make me an admin I can do that!

@sideDesert what do you think of that?

I would love to see a community owned SFU with things like autoscaling and 1st class support of embedded/WHIP. At this time no one in the community has shown interest in building it though :)

[sideDesert]

I think it's a fair start, especially because we don't have much resources easily available online as of now in terms of SFU options. Pion is the only place newbies at webrtc go to. It is a shame though that we don't have any standard SFU projects from the community ;-; webrtc and SFUs are really cool imo.

[Sean-Der]

@sideDesert Maybe you should start it!

I would totally be up to have a SFU under the Pion organization again. Maybe we use the same ion name but start from scratch :)

I think having the following would make a big impact.

• Autoscales/Autoconfiguration. Users should be able to just drop it into k8s. I don't want to worry about IPs etc...
• Comes with Web/iOS/Android Clients
• Easily to modify/code on.
• Support for Embedded Clients
• Support for WHIP/WHEP (Broadcasting)

None of this has to be done for a V1. However for it to be a useful/exciting project this is what people are looking for

Working on Pion (and other Open Source) has made my life substantially better. Building something and seeing people use it/excited about it is such a joy. I also have built a career out of it. Building ^ would have the same impact for anyone interested.

[drshrey]

I would be interested in contributing to a community-owned SFU. Been working with tools like LiveKit in the voice AI space, and while they're great, something open-source and community-owned that's more lightweight and easier to manage would be really valuable. Happy to help with whatever's needed to get something like this off the ground!