Dendri adds presence, chat, and live sync to your app with reliable peer-to-peer connections and one open-source SDK.
import { createDendriStore }
from "@afterrealism/dendri-client";
const room = createDendriStore({
url: "wss://signal.example.com",
enableRelay: true
});
room.join("design-review");
room.broadcast(
{ x: 120, y: 84 },
{ topic: "cursor" }
);
// Your endpoint. Never a hidden default.Discovery, host election, presence, and messaging arrive together. You build the experience, not the bookkeeping.
Use direct P2P for payload traffic, or enable room relay when reachability matters more. Either way, there is no per-message bill.
Your endpoint, your server, your data path. The open-source stack has no paid tier and no vendor lock-in.
The room works until a laptop sleeps, a network changes, or the host leaves. That is the work Dendri takes off your plate.
A VPN, strict NAT, or hotel Wi-Fi turns a perfect demo into a connection error.
Dendri falls back from P2P through STUN and TURN to a TLS relay. Signaling can bridge WebSocket, SSE, and long-poll.
Your users should not lose the room because one person finished first.
Deterministic host migration promotes another peer. Token-based reconnection, heartbeat, and offline message queuing help interrupted peers resume.
They need to find the room, see who is there, and start taking part.
Rooms, typed presence, topics, RPC, and acknowledgements are first-class APIs. For shared documents, the Dendri Yjs provider handles synchronization.
Each path starts with your users, then shows the APIs, working examples, and boundaries that matter for that moment.
Let people finish the thought together.
Keep the match moving when the host leaves.
Let people send files directly to each other.
Open a demo in two tabs. The moment either works or it does not.
No protocol to invent and no account to create. Start locally, then deploy the same open-source stack.
Start building →Launch Redis and the Rust server with the quickstart, then verify it is alive.
curl http://127.0.0.1:9876/healthInstall the framework-neutral SDK in your app.
npm install @afterrealism/dendri-clientPoint at your endpoint, join, and open a second tab.
room.join("design-review")Every feature ships in the open-source binary you deploy. There is no paid tier, no feature gate, and no default connection to our infrastructure.
A useful guide tells you when to choose another path.
| Dendri | PeerJS | Liveblocks / PartyKit | LiveKit / Daily | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Model | Self-hosted P2P signaling | Library + best-effort free cloud | Hosted collaboration SaaS | Managed video platform |
| Rooms & presence | Built in | None | Built in | Built in |
| Connection fallback | P2P, STUN, TURN, TLS relay | None | Server-relayed by design | SFU-routed by design |
| Sweet spot | Data rooms up to 50 peers; video calls 2 to 6 | Demos and prototypes | Hosted collaboration apps | Large video conferences |
Building 10+ person video conferences? LiveKit or Daily will serve you better.
Yes. The client SDKs are Apache-2.0, closed-source apps included. AGPL-3.0 covers only the signaling server. If you modify that server and offer it as a network service, publish those modifications. Your application code never inherits AGPL.
Yes. The open-source server runs anywhere from a small VPS to Kubernetes. The SDK ships no default endpoint: every app points at a URL you configure, so there is no hidden dependency on anyone's infrastructure.
Connections fall back through STUN, TURN, and a TLS relay when those options are enabled. Signaling itself falls back from WebSocket to SSE to long-polling.
With relay disabled, direct P2P payloads stay off the server. With Room enableRelay: true, every room broadcast is also sent to your server, even when WebRTC is open, and is visible as application data. For 1:1 JSON-safe traffic, HybridConnection with encryptRelay: true seals relay payloads with ECDH and AES-GCM.
Rooms use star topology: the host fans out to everyone else. Data rooms hold up to 50 peers by default, configurable with --max_room_size. For video calls, plan for 2 to 6 peers. Beyond that, choose an SFU platform.
Only for the strictest networks. The server mints short-lived TURN credentials when started with --turn-secret. Enable fetchTurnCredentials in the client. The self-hosting guide covers running coturn alongside it.
Start with one room. Open two tabs. Watch your app come alive.