What is a video conferencing API?

A video conferencing API is a service plus SDKs that let developers build voice and video calls into their own application. It provides rooms, short-lived access tokens, media tracks for audio, camera and screen, client libraries for web and mobile, and the backend pieces WebRTC leaves to you: signaling, an SFU media server and STUN/TURN. The result is calling that lives inside your product rather than a separate meeting tool.

What is the difference between a video conferencing API and Zoom or Teams?

Zoom and Teams are finished meeting products with their own apps, accounts and links. A video conferencing API is a building block: your app owns the interface, the users and the rooms, and the API supplies the media infrastructure behind them. Some meeting vendors also sell an SDK, but the distinguishing question is whether the call runs inside your authenticated product on infrastructure you can choose.

Should I build video calling with WebRTC or use an API?

Building directly on WebRTC works for one-to-one calls, but group calls need an SFU, NAT traversal needs TURN servers, and mobile needs push and battery handling, all of which take media engineering and ongoing operations. An API or platform gives you those pieces on day one. If data control matters, look for one you can run in your own cloud account rather than a purely hosted service.

Is a video conferencing API HIPAA compliant?

No product is compliant on its own; the covered entity is. What a vendor can offer is a Business Associate Agreement and technical safeguards: encryption in transit with DTLS-SRTP, encryption at rest for anything stored, authenticated access to rooms, audit trails and retention controls. Ethora provides these and signs a BAA on Enterprise and dedicated plans, with the option to run the whole stack inside your own cloud account.

Does a video conferencing API include chat?

Often not, or only as a basic in-call message panel that disappears when the call ends. Ethora takes the opposite approach: chat rooms, message history, AI agents and calls share one SDK and one set of users, so a call is started from a conversation and the messages, files and audit trail around it persist. For support, telehealth and advisory use that continuity is usually the point.

Glossary

Video Conferencing API

Calls inside your product, not a link to someone else’s. A video conferencing API exposes rooms, participants and media tracks so a developer can build voice and video calling into an app, with the media server, signaling and NAT traversal handled for them.

General definition

A Video Conferencing API (also called a video call API or video SDK) packages the hard parts of real-time communication behind a programming interface. Underneath it is almost always WebRTC: the browser and mobile media engine that captures, encodes and encrypts audio and video. The API adds what WebRTC leaves to the application: a signaling service to set calls up, an SFU media server so group calls scale, STUN and TURN for NAT traversal, and identity so that only the right people join the right room.

Rooms or sessions: a named space that participants join, created and controlled from your backend
Access tokens: short-lived credentials, usually JWTs, that your server mints so a user can join a specific room with specific permissions
Tracks: audio, camera video and shared-screen video that participants publish and subscribe to, with mute, quality and layout under app control
Client SDKs for web, iOS, Android and cross-platform frameworks, plus server-side APIs and webhooks for room events
Optional services such as recording, live streaming output, transcription and dial-in, each priced and secured separately

Build versus buy turns on how much of that stack you want to own. Building on open-source components (an SFU project, a TURN server, your own signaling) gives full control and no per-minute fees but demands media engineering expertise and operations. Buying a hosted API is fast to integrate and scales without your involvement, at the cost of usage pricing and media transiting a third party. A middle path is a platform you can run in your own cloud account, which keeps the operational burden with the vendor and the data with you.

For telehealth and other regulated uses the checklist is specific. HIPAA requires a Business Associate Agreement with any vendor that handles protected health information, and the enforcement discretion that allowed consumer meeting tools during the pandemic ended in 2023. Media must be encrypted in transit, which WebRTC does with DTLS-SRTP; access must be limited to authenticated participants; and the deployment should support audit trails, data residency and retention rules for anything recorded. A calling API that lives inside an authenticated patient or client app satisfies these more naturally than a standalone meeting link.

In the Ethora ecosystem

Ethora’s voice and video call API adds calling to the same SDK that provides chat and AI agents. Calls are built on WebRTC with an SFU media server, support group calls, and can be enabled as audio-only for products that do not need video. VoIP push wakes the app on iOS and Android for incoming calls, and because participants are the users already provisioned in your app, a call starts from an existing conversation with the identity, room membership and access controls that chat already enforces.

The deployment model is the compliance answer: managed cloud for speed, a dedicated server that Ethora TechOps operate inside your own AWS, DigitalOcean or other cloud account, or fully self-hosted. On Enterprise and dedicated plans Ethora signs a Business Associate Agreement and provides the technical safeguards, TLS and SRTP in transit, encryption at rest, access controls, audit trail and configurable retention, that a healthcare or financial buyer needs to document; the compliance programme itself remains the customer’s. See the healthcare chat SDK page for the wider regulated-industry picture.

Video Conferencing API

General definition

In the Ethora ecosystem

Add voice and video to your app

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