eturnal vs Janus
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted video conferencing options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Not the right match-up?
eturnal
STUN and TURN server for real-time applications
VS
Janus
General-purpose, lightweight, minimalist WebRTC Server
| Feature | eturnal | Janus |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Video Conferencing | Video Conferencing |
| License | Apache-2.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Language | Erlang | C |
| Setup difficulty | Medium | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 128 MB | 512 MB |
| Deployment | docker, binary, source | bare-metal |
| GitHub stars | ★ 340 | ★ 9,144 |
| First released | 2020 | 2020 |
| Replaces | Twilio STUN/TURN | — |
Why pick each one
Choose eturnal if…
- Released under the Apache-2.0 license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Written in Erlang
- Tiny footprint — runs in 128 MB RAM
Choose Janus if…
- Released under the GPL-3.0 license
- Mature project with 9.1k GitHub stars
- Written in C
- Lightweight — runs in 512 MB RAM
Frequently asked questions
Is eturnal or Janus better?
Neither is universally better. Janus has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are eturnal and Janus free and open-source?
Yes. eturnal is licensed under Apache-2.0 and Janus under GPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run eturnal and Janus with Docker?
eturnal: yes. Janus: check the project docs for container support.