Hi and thank you for stopping by to read this article. I am Tsahi Levent-Levi, the W3C’s WebRTC Evangelist.

After many years of assisting hundreds of companies and developers around the world in their quest to create WebRTC-based products and services, I have decided to share my knowledge and expertise with you. This technology is slated to become very popular in the coming years so learning more about it now and becoming an expert when WebRTC use explodes in the tech world will be one of the best decisions you ever made!

What you'll learn in this article:

What is WebRTC anyway?

WebRTC is a relatively new browser technology that enables sending real time voice, video and data directly from one browser to another (or towards a media server). If you are trying to develop a live communications experience that works on the web through a browser, then WebRTC is what you need.

As a technology, WebRTC requires a slew of servers to get it to work: a signaling server, NAT traversal servers (STUN and TURN) as well as media servers if you're thinking of group calling or recording.

WebRTC is available today in all modern web browsers: Google Chrome Apple Safari, Microsoft Edge and Mozilla Firefox.

If you're wondering who is using it, then the simplest answer is that almost everyone. From unified communication giants such as Microsoft and Google, towards social network vendors like Facebook and Discord. And the reasons for this wide adoption are simple:

1. The technology itself has been open sourced by Google
2. WebRTC is available in all web browsers, making it common place

COVID-19 and the future of WebRTC

The pandemic got the whole world to quarantine at home and start using digital communications more. We've all been using video calls a lot more than we used to, with millions of people getting educated about the potential and advantages of this technology.

The result? We've been thrown 5-10 years into the future in terms of where the demand is and now the technology and availability of products need to catch up.

Companies have been rushing their roadmap or shifting focus to meet with this growing demand. And this isn't going to change any time soon. The world is a new place now. While we might not see the huge spike of use during the quarantine period, we will definitely see a distinct rise of use of digital communication technologies.

Video conferencing and other digital communications are going to stay a hot trend 🔥 for years to come.

Nice to meet you. I am Tsahi Levent-Levi, the WebRTC Evangelist.

When WebRTC came into the world in 2011, I immediately knew nothing would ever be the same. Two things turned my world upside down:

1. I understood that everything I’ve learned and worked on up until that day just died!
2. Software communication has changed forever, and whoever isn’t going to get on the bus is going to miss the ride and its biggest opportunities.

I started to research WebRTC thoroughly and start the first blog on the subject - BlogGeek.me - which turned into one of the leading sources of WebRTC information in the world.

As the technology improved, more and more people started to take an interest in it. Google’s own product manager of WebRTC at the time, Serge Lachapelle, approached me with a request to access some of the data on WebRTC that I had collected. Later on, I founded Kranky Geek, the main event for WebRTC developers, with him. Developers from all over the world attend this event to meet and get updates on what companies are doing today with WebRTC, learning from their experiences.

After leading several on-site WebRTC trainings, I understood that I can’t really spread the word and train enough developers about WebRTC only through on-site training sessions. “Evangelizing” WebRTC meant doing more, which led me to the creation of the most comprehensive and up to date WebRTC course in the market today - my Advanced WebRTC Architecture Course.

Today, with 600+ students from over 100 companies who have taken my WebRTC training, I can say that the satisfaction I get from the feedback of developers taking the course and the tools and experience they derive from it is a source of of pride. Seeing people develop unique WebRTC services and getting them to production with the help of my course - that’s priceless to me.

Here’s where you can find my WebRTC students around the globe.

There’s a huge demand in the market. I’ve been getting steady requests through my blog from employers looking to hire WebRTC developers to build their products. There aren't enough skilled hands to fill it. At the moment there are just 20,000 with some WebRTC expertise and the demand is just rising.

If you are

Then this is definitely for you!

The 2 biggest challenges of anyone who wants to learn WebRTC

I’ve been speaking to a lot of developers and entrepreneurs who are actively interested in WebRTC. Here are the two biggest challenges that I see today:

1. WebRTC DIY syndrome

Most developers come to me when their managers ask them to build something with WebRTC. Usually, this is after they decided to research the topic and learn on their own. Sometimes, they have already invested $100 on a Udemy course - in many cases their employer funds their training. Such approaches fail: The information on the Internet about WebRTC isn’t organized, is usually not up to date, and sometimes it's just plain wrong. This causes a developers to make mistakes that risk projects, cost money, take precious time or even bring to a loss of job.

Most of my calls and meetings sound the same:

You start off enthusiastic, willing to invest the time and energy. You sit, intently watching the video lessons and learning. But then you try the sample provided in the course and something doesn’t click - the sample doesn’t work. One attempt, a second, a third. You try to figure out how to fix that codebase, finally getting to the realization that the course isn’t up to date. It also doesn’t include a lot of the aspects that go into real WebRTC development and only focus on that “Hello World” example. All that wasted time, money, and effort gone down the drain.

If you are reading this and wondering which WebRTC training course is for you, I suggest you do one thing and one thing only: check the date that the course was updated.

I’ll wait here while you’re looking.

If the course isn’t from the last 12 months, it is no longer relevant.

2. WebRTC is multidisciplinary

WebRTC is pretty confusing as a technology. Learning only its API surface or what’s written in the standard isn’t nearly enough to build a product with it.

Learning WebRTC on your own is hard. There is no single place where you can get all that training you need in a “linear” fashion. 

The reason for that probably stems from where WebRTC is located:

Developers who take up WebRTC come from one of these routes – they either have a solid VoIP background, but know little about web development; or more often than not – they know how to create web apps but know very little about VoIP. This brings about two different software development disciplines with very different software developers. And it is there where the real challenge lies.

Add to that the ever-changing nature of WebRTC, the need to learn about media compression, media processing, signaling, standardization, implementations, and ecosystem - and it is obvious why this technology is so difficult to learn without professional guidance.

What is the big opportunity for you?

The world has changed. We are now more focused on remote work, remote assistance and the virtualization of many aspects of our infrastructure and ecosystem. Industries are shifting from pure face-to-face interactions to augmenting them with video communications. This includes healthcare, education, gaming and many other verticals.

WebRTC is the cornerstone and underlying technology in this shift. We are moving away from pure VoIP towards WebRTC, as the stackoverflow trends chart above indicates. The interest in it is growing along with the demand for WebRTC experts, but there aren't many experienced WebRTC developers out there. WebRTC is a very lucrative niche.

By learning WebRTC, you will be able to:

If you are working in the communications IT industry and don't have deep WebRTC knowledge and understanding, then you are missing the bus. And if you are looking to find a growing industry that isn't over-hyped and crowded by developers already then WebRTC is the place for you to be.

Why is this WebRTC course considered the best one in this field and how can it help you with your project?

Here’s what a few of the people who took my course have to say about it:

What am I most proud of? When people who took my course share their success stories with me. Some have told me they’ve successfully launched their product with the help of my course. Others have taken the course and asked their company to invest further by referring more students to it. A few shared with me that they continue watching specific lessons in the course when their job requires a point solution or better understanding in a specific area (it is always hard to soak up so much information and knowledge in a short timespan).

Where are most of the course students located? They live everywhere…

600+ students from over 100 companies and over 40 countries have enrolled in the course, learned WebRTC, and are using this knowledge to develop WebRTC products.

From a quick search, you’ll find approximately 20,000 people on LinkedIn who show interest in WebRTC. With 600 students, I’d say there are approximately 8% of developers who work with WebRTC that have put their trust in my online WebRTC training.

While I don’t know every single project that was developed with the help of my course, I have learned that WebRTC has become a kind of a calling. So much so that the W3C have appointed me as their official WebRTC Evangelist.