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This blog summarizes the testing results comparing Agora versus Vonage for multi-party web video calls with 32 participants. 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 of Agora and Vonage for multi-party web video calls.
For Agora, we tested using Agora Web Demo (SDK 4.17.0). For Vonage, we tested leveraging the most recent version of the Vonage WebRTC Demo , to ensure that Vonage best practices were properly implemented for comparison.
Here’s a quick overview of the results for each 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 28 FPS for Agora and 27 FPS for Vonage. The overall experience for end users was similar under normal network conditions.
When introducing 25% uplink packet loss, Agora remains steady at 15 FPS while Vonage begins lagging at 12 FPS.
With with 25% downlink packet loss, Agora continues to maintain 17 FPS while the performance of Vonage is impacted significantly, down to 1 FPS resulting in choppy video.
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 Vonage, holding steady at 8 FPS. In comparison Vonage drops to 5 FPS.
When downlink jitter of 600ms was added, Agora held steady at 9 FPS with Vonage 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 and Vonage performed in a similar way while the limitation was applied. After the limitation was removed Agora had a more stable frame rate with an average of 27 FPS, while Vonage fluctuated more, at times dipping to 15 FPS.
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. While the limitation was applied Agora performed better than Vonage, recovering to an average frame rate of approximately 13 FPS while Vonage remained near 0 FPS with frozen video. Once the limitation was removed, Agora and Vonage recovered to 15 FPS and then to approximately 27 FPS. After recovery, to 27 FPS, Agora remained stable while Vonage fluctuated between near 27 FPS and 15 FPS.
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
Agora consumed slightly less CPU resources vs. Vonage in all scenarios, with an average of 5.26% utilization vs. Vonage at an average of 5.43%.
Agora consumed slightly more RAM than Vonage, at an average of 1.5% vs. 1% of available RAM, respectively.
This blog summarizes the test results comparing Agora and Vonage across varying scenarios and conditions experienced when implementing video SDKs for multi-party web use cases. When it comes to providing real-time communication tools, the ability to deliver a high-quality and consistent end user experience is critical.
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.
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