r/WebRTC

Hi devs!
I wanted a simple, zero-setup way to transfer media from phone to desktop without using cloud intermediaries. I built Sendlyy using WebRTC and native WebSockets for signaling.
**Technical Stack & Architecture:**
- **Signaling**: Lightweight Node.js/Express + WS signaling server (exchanges SDP offers/answers & ICE candidates).
- **Data Transfer**: Native `RTCDataChannel` directly between browser instances.
- **Privacy**: 0 bytes of file data stored on server, rooms automatically self-destroy after 15 minutes.
- **UX & i18n**: Responsive touch UI with drag/swipe mechanics and automatic GeoIP language detection across 9 languages.
Would love any feedback on the WebRTC reconnection handling or UX!
Website: https://sendlyy.net/

Hi everyone,

Not trying to promote anything here, just want opinions from people who actually work with WebRTC regularly, since most of what I learned putting this together came from reading old threads in this sub.

I built a multiplayer package for a React game engine called CarverJS. It uses a peer to peer mesh over WebRTC instead of a relay or dedicated game server. One peer acts as host, the rest sync to them, and signaling is free by default through public MQTT brokers, or your own Firebase project if you want more control. Everything is open source and MIT licensed, completely free, no paid signaling tier or anything like that.

The part I am least confident about is host migration. Right now, if the host disconnects, a new host gets elected and the room reloads from a snapshot in under 2 seconds. I have only tested this on small local networks with friends. I have no real data on how this behaves with a mesh of more than four or five peers, or what happens to migration time once you are dealing with asymmetric connection quality across peers.

STUN alone has not been enough for every network I tested on, so I ended up needing a TURN server for anything outside a friendly NAT. If any of you have run mesh topologies at a larger peer count, I would like to know whether you would have gone with a different topology entirely, like a selective forwarding approach, once the peer count grows.

Genuinely looking for the parts I got wrong here, not compliments. If mesh topology is a bad choice past a certain peer count, I would rather hear that now.

I'm building a cross-platform file transfer service and I'm currently stuck on the local transfer part.

I want users to be able to transfer large files directly between their phone and Windows PC when they're on the same network.

I'm hesitating between two approaches:

WebRTC: no installation required, everything happens in the browser, which makes the UX much simpler. But I'm concerned about browser/device limitations and reliability with large files.

Windows companion app (.exe): it would give me much more control over local discovery and transfers, but requiring users to download an executable feels like a significant barrier for a consumer product.

I'm especially concerned about making the product feel trustworthy since users will be transferring personal files.

For those who have built something similar, which approach would you recommend and why?