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WebRTC Codecs Guide

A comprehensive guide to video codecs in WebRTC

There‘s limited information available about video codecs used in WebRTC, their performance, and compatibility with various clients. This guide is intended to clarify these aspects of WebRTC codecs and to help you make an informed decision.

CodecH.264VP8VP9H.265/HEVCAV1

Codec Efficiency

BaselineBaseline23-33% more efficient40-60% more efficient24-52% more efficient

Encoding Performance

High (HW accelerated)

High

High

High (HW accelerated)

Low

Bitrate Adaptation
Simulcast (spatial-only)SimulcastSVC / SimulcastSimulcast (spatial-only)SVC / Simulcast
Compatibility
chrome logoChrome (Edge, Brave, etc)
Check IconCheck IconCheck Icon107+Check Icon
safari logoSafari
Check Icon12.2+15.0+11.0+Close Icon
firefox logoFireFox
35+Check Icon

Partial

137+Close Icon
ios logoiOS / MacOS
Check IconCheck IconCheck IconCheck IconCheck Icon
android logoAndroid

Device-dependent

Check IconCheck Icon

Device-dependent

Check Icon
windows logoWindows
Check IconCheck IconCheck IconCheck IconCheck Icon
linux logoLinux
Check IconCheck IconCheck IconCheck IconCheck Icon

*Native support using WebRTC fork webrtc-sdk