Try Agora for Free
Sign up and start building! You don’t pay until you scale.
This blog summarizes the testing results of Agora versus Twilio for 1:1 Web video calls. The testing covers the most important considerations when assessing video SDKs, from analyzing performance under constrained network conditions to maximizing throughput given available bandwidth while keeping central processing unit (CPU) and random-access memory (RAM) usage as low as possible.
Before we take a deep dive into the results, let’s review the test setup, configuration and scenarios covered in the testing.
In this test we used laptops with the following configuration for the sender and receiver:
All video feeds are set to 640×360 @ 24FPS with the laptops connected to a stable Wi-Fi network.
For Agora, we tested using the Agora App Builder 2.0 and for Twilio we tested leveraging the most recent version of the Twilio Video React App, to ensure that Twilio best practices were properly implemented for comparison.
Here’s a quick overview of the results for reach testing scenario before we dive into the full details for each one:
In these tests, we again focused primarily on the effect of packet loss and limiting network conditions on the send and receive frame rates.
As you can see in the graph below, with the network functioning under normal conditions, the frame rate was steady at 23 FPS for Agora and 20 FPS for Twilio. The overall experience for end users was similar under normal network conditions.
When introducing 25% uplink packet loss, Agora remains steady at 18 FPS while Twilio begins lagging at 12 FPS.
With 25% downlink packet loss, Agora continues to maintain 17 FPS while the performance of Twilio is impacted significantly, down to 7 FPS.
A significant variation in latency can occur when sending traffic over an IP network. When simulating conditions of a highly congested network having an uplink jitter of 600ms, Agora outperforms Twilio, holding steady at 9 FPS. In comparison Twilio drops to 4 FPS.
When downlink jitter of 600ms was added, Agora held steady at 13 FPS with Twilio dropping to 5 FPS.
This test starts without any bandwidth limitations, and then after 60 seconds the network is throttled to 500 Kbps in the upstream direction, and then in the downstream direction for a total of 30 seconds. Under these challenging conditions, Agora performed slightly better than Twilio while the limitation was applied. When the bandwidth limitation was removed, Agora maintained a more stable frame rate near 23 FPS, while Twilio’s FPS experienced greater fluctuations.
This test starts without any bandwidth limitations or simulated packet loss. After 60 seconds, the network is throttled to 500 Kbps in the upstream direction along with 25% simulated packet loss. These conditions are then applied in the downstream direction for a total of 30 seconds. Agora’s average frame rate while the impairments were applied was approximately 13 FPS while Twilio’s average was approximately 7 FPS. Once the impairments were removed, Agora rapidly recovered to an average of 22 FPS while Twilio struggled for approximately 50 seconds to recover.
Agora has several ways to combat network disruptions and costly packet loss. Most notably, these include leveraging our SD-RTN™ network as an overlay to the public internet, which routes traffic around impairments on the internet using AI algorithms and optimally shapes real-time traffic for the best performance.
Agora also implements technologies to smooth out the effects of packet loss to optimize the end-user experience.
Processor: Intel Core i7-1185G7 @ 3.00 GHz
Twilio consumed slightly less CPU resources at an average of 4.28% vs. Agora at 4.58%.
Twilio consumed more RAM than Agora at an average of 250 MB vs. Agora at 146 MB.
This blog summarizes the test results covering various real-world scenarios and conditions experienced when implementing Video SDKs for point-to-point Web use cases. When it comes to real-time communication, the ability to deliver a high-quality and consistent end user experience is critical. Our testing shows that Agora consistently outperforms Twilio in common RTC scenarios involving jitter and packet loss. Agora’s advantage in these scenarios comes from our global SD-RTN (Software Defined Real Time Network)™ which uses AI to intelligently route traffic for optimal RTC performance.
At Agora, our customers—ranging from some of the largest social media companies in the world to bootstrapped startups—continue to leverage our SDKs to easily integrate video, voice, and interactive live streaming experiences into any app. We empower developers to deliver best-in-class real-time experiences, with global delivery and scale.
Sign up for free today to start building or contact us for a free consultation.
