What is the difference between a “Channel” and a “Room” and when should I use them?
Room
A Room can have multiple pieces of content, such as broadcast-type content and user-generated content (UGC). These content streams can carry the same content or can contain different content.
Some members can simultaneously generate and subscribe to content streams.
Channel
A Channel is a specific type of Room. A Channel has a single piece of content, in one or more streams, from one or more Publishers (each encoder or contribution path is a different Publisher).
If there are multiple streams, each stream is assumed to have the same content. This is used for high availability, where content is contributed via multiple redundant pathways to ensure delivery.
A Side-by-Side Comparison
Room
Use case: many-to-many, few-to-many, one-to-one
More than one piece of content in the room
Typically used to create a group experience with more than one publisher
Rich set of APIs for creating a wide range of experiences
Customers need to build stream selection logic on Client if multiple streams
Channel
Use case: one-to-many
Only one active piece of content at a time (at most one audio & one video & one data)
Typically used to create a broadcast experience with a single publisher
Simplified set of APIs for publishing and viewing
Channel provides stream selection logic, including High-Availability (HA) logic
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