Real-time WebRTC infrastructure on your own servers. SDK in 10 lines, install in one. Free under the Community License; $75/server/mo for the full feature set with priority support.
1 line
install command
< 5 min
install on a fresh box
$75
per server per month
Ed25519
signed license blobs
The installer detects your OS (Ubuntu / Debian / RHEL / Alpine), installs Docker if missing, generates random secrets for every datastore, computes a stable instance fingerprint, and brings up the full stack. It opens an interactive menu — start in Community mode (no card needed) or paste a license for the full feature set.
What you need: a 4 vCPU / 8 GB box (Hetzner CPX31 €13.10/mo or equivalent), root access, internet egress on 443. Tested on Ubuntu 22.04 / 24.04, Debian 12, Rocky 9, Alpine 3.20.
Got a paid license? Run the exact same one-liner — the installer opens an interactive menu. Choose Install → Licensed and paste your license token when prompted. Already on Community mode? Re-run it and choose Activate license — no reinstall, no downtime.
Your license token is shown on the Console billing page with a one-click copy button the moment your subscription is active (it is emailed too). Community mode runs a single server and caps each room at 10 participants; a Pro license lifts the per-room limit and unlocks multi-node clusters.
Prefer to read it first? View the install.sh script — no obfuscation, every step grep-able.
Self-host runs the exact images we ship to our cloud. No feature gating, no performance haircut, no "cloud-only" lock-in. The trade-off is operational ownership — and below is what you get for it.
Run forever in Community mode, no card. Add a license from the Studio Console when you outgrow the cap. Pay per server, not per seat.
Free forever, single-server, 10 participants/room cap.
Download install.shDetects your OS, installs Docker, generates random secrets, and brings up the full LevelChat stack (gateway, signaling, SFU, recording, transcoder, billing, chat, webhooks, and the supporting workers). No manual config files. No copy-paste secrets.
Auto Let’s Encrypt for any domain you point at the box. Or take the auto-provisioned `lc-<8hex>.lc-cloud.io` sub-domain — already-trusted certs from second one.
Spin up a second box, paste a join token, the installer wires the WireGuard mesh, NATS replica, and SFU cascade. No SSH key shuffling.
Mint a 24-hour join token from your leader’s Console (Cluster → Add node). On the new box, run the very same one-liner:
In the installer menu pick Join an existing cluster, then paste the leader URL and the join token when prompted — the CLI validates both and wires the node in. No env vars, no flags.
The worker auto-registers in cluster_nodes, joins the WireGuard mesh, attaches the NATS JetStream replica, and starts cascading SFU traffic. The leader’s UI surfaces the new node as pending license until you assign a per-node JWT to it.
Each node billed at $75/server/mo regardless of size
Per-node fingerprint, no key sharing
LevelChat ships under the LevelChat Community License v1.0 (BSL-style). Audit it, fork it, contribute upstream — source access is available on request during the preview window. Production use beyond Community mode requires a paid license — that’s how we keep building.
Full feature set, no per-room limit.
Buy licensePay only for the boxes you actually run. Each server gets a fingerprint-bound JWT — copy a VM, license refuses to verify. No DRM theatre, just clean math.
SFU cascade promotes mid-call automatically