FreeSWITCH vs LiveKit
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted apps from related categories — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Not the right match-up?
FreeSWITCH
Scalable software telephony platform
VS
LiveKit
Scalable WebRTC infrastructure for real-time audio and video
| Feature | FreeSWITCH | LiveKit |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Chat & Communication | Video Conferencing |
| License | MPL-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Language | C | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Hard | Hard |
| Min. RAM | 512 MB | 512 MB |
| Deployment | docker, bare-metal, source | docker, kubernetes, binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 5,069 | ★ 20,181 |
| First released | 2006 | 2021 |
| Replaces | Twilio, Asterisk | Twilio, Agora |
Why pick each one
Choose FreeSWITCH if…
- Released under the MPL-2.0 license
- First-class Docker support for quick deployment
- Mature project with 5.1k GitHub stars
- Written in C
Frequently asked questions
Is FreeSWITCH or LiveKit better?
Neither is universally better. LiveKit has the larger community; both share a hard setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are FreeSWITCH and LiveKit free and open-source?
Yes. FreeSWITCH is licensed under MPL-2.0 and LiveKit under Apache-2.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run FreeSWITCH and LiveKit with Docker?
FreeSWITCH: yes. LiveKit: yes.