Agora

Metered RTC voice and video API

Free tier + paidRealtime, comments & collabagora.io

What it is

Global realtime engagement platform selling voice, video, interactive live streaming, signaling and chat as metered minutes across its own software-defined network. Video is priced by resolution tier, so standard definition costs materially less than Full HD or 2K. Notably strong routing and presence across Asia, including mainland China.

Why it earns a slot

Cheapest headline per-minute rate among the large video vendors and the broadest platform SDK coverage, including Unity and Electron. Its interactive live-streaming mode handles one host plus thousands of viewers, which a plain SFU room cannot.

Know before you commit

Minutes are aggregated and priced by resolution tier, so a 1080p multi-party call bills at several times the advertised standard-definition rate — read the resolution table before modelling costs. The SDK surface is large and the docs are dense next to Daily or LiveKit.

Getting started

npm i agora-rtc-sdk-ng

Field notes

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Pricing snapshot

Free monthly: 10,000 combined RTC minutes, 1M signaling messages, 500 chat users, 300 conversational AI minutes. RTC $0.59 per 1,000 minutes; recording $0.99 per 1,000; speech-to-text $16.99 per 1,000; real-time translation $8.99 per 1,000 per language. Analytics add-on from $449/mo

Snapshots move fast — verify at checkout, and post a field note if it changed.

Drop into your Lovable chat

Evaluate Agora (https://www.agora.io) for this project, then use it only if it fits what we are already building.
Context: Metered RTC voice and video API. Global realtime engagement platform selling voice, video, interactive live streaming, signaling and chat as metered minutes across its own software-defined network. Video is priced by resolution tier, so standard definition costs materially less than Full HD or 2K. Notably strong routing and presence across Asia, including mainland China.
Reviewer notes (general, not written for this codebase): Cheapest headline per-minute rate among the large video vendors and the broadest platform SDK coverage, including Unity and Electron. Its interactive live-streaming mode handles one host plus thousands of viewers, which a plain SFU room cannot.
Watch out for: Minutes are aggregated and priced by resolution tier, so a 1080p multi-party call bills at several times the advertised standard-definition rate — read the resolution table before modelling costs. The SDK surface is large and the docs are dense next to Daily or LiveKit.
Pricing: Free monthly: 10,000 combined RTC minutes, 1M signaling messages, 500 chat users, 300 conversational AI minutes. RTC $0.59 per 1,000 minutes; recording $0.99 per 1,000; speech-to-text $16.99 per 1,000; real-time translation $8.99 per 1,000 per language. Analytics add-on from $449/mo
Setup: npm i agora-rtc-sdk-ng
Rules: treat the notes above as background only. Do not assume a theme, style, layout or feature that is not already in this project — inspect the existing code first and ask me before changing visual direction.

/api/public/tools/agora

Neighbourhood

How Agora sits against the rest of the atlas — swaps, companions and the tools builders actually save alongside it.

Instead of thisGiscus PartyKit Socket.IO Yjs Ably Chatwoot Circle Crisp Cusdis

Named in the wiringStream

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