SFU, MCU, or P2P: What’s the Difference Between These WebRTC Architectures?

Selective Forwarding Units (SFUs), Multipoint Control Units (MCUs), and Peer-to-Peer (P2P) connections are distinct architectures used in VoIP and video conferencing applications, each with its own advantages and limitations. SFUs excel in scalability and flexibility by only forwarding selected media streams between parties, enabling them to manage bandwidth and support a larger number of participants compared to P2P connections, which require each party to send and receive media streams directly with every other participant. Unlike SFUs, MCUs integrate various audio and video signals into a single stream for broadcasting, offering high compatibility with legacy systems but at the cost of increased complexity and resource demands. While P2P networks are simple and cost-effective, they can be unstable, insecure, and bandwidth-intensive, making them less efficient for large-scale conferencing. Ultimately, the choice between these architectures depends on factors such as cost, scalability, flexibility, and specific conferencing needs, with SFUs providing additional features such as transcoding and bandwidth management.