How Zoom’s Video SDK stacks up on web

Zoom is dedicated to delivering an exceptional user experience for real-time video and audio communication on the web. While our web media stack uses the latest web standards, we sought greater control over the video and audio experience. This led Zoom to integrate both web standards and proprietary technology, resulting in an optimal solution.

Our commitment to the scalability of our web media stack and browser support is reflected in customer innovations, as developers across the telehealth, education, fitness, real estate, hiring, and coaching industries have benefited their users by migrating to the Zoom Video SDK.

Read on and learn more about the global web media infrastructure and browser support from Zoom’s innovative approach to the browser experience.

When you join a Zoom meeting in your browser, along with millions of daily meeting participants who are also joining from a browser vs. the Zoom desktop or mobile application, you are experiencing Zoom’s advanced web media implementation first-hand. The Zoom Video SDK allows you to build for your own use cases with the same web media stack that powers the Zoom meeting browser experience.

When building with Zoom, developers benefit from our Zoom cloud—a globally distributed network comprised of over 25 data centers. This enables you to choose and use specific data centers, while also providing access to our innovative feature set and roadmap.

From 1-to-1 sessions, such as between a doctor and a patient, to group sessions between several people, Zoom’s Video SDK supports up to 1,000 real-time (two-way video and audio) users in a session, with the capability to live stream to an unlimited audience. 

WebAssembly enables us to use Zoom’s custom video codec in web browsers. We can utilize the Zoom native Client C / C++ code and seamlessly integrate it into Zoom’s Web Client and Web SDKs. This means we handle the codec, and developers do not need to pick or tune one. Zoom optimizes the video resolution and FPS for the device, taking into account CPU load and network conditions. Developers can always adjust these defaults to prioritize resolution over framerate so they can build for their use case. See this deep dive with the Chrome Dev team where we explain our use of WebAssembly.

Building with WebAssembly allows us to offer advanced noise suppression, virtual backgrounds, more reliable 720p video resolution, and rendering of multiple videos at a time (25 videos on desktop browsers and four on mobile browsers) while optimizing for CPU, network conditions, and performance within the browser. 

Zoom also uses WebRTC in certain areas of our web media stack. We value both the progress of WebRTC and the developer community around it. That being said, we are always building beyond what’s possible with current web standards to deliver the best possible experience to our developers and end users.

Since launching the Video SDK three years ago, we’ve listened to customers and delivered new features, expanded browser support, and enhanced the developer experience. From cloud recording to PSTN audio connections, and file transfer to live transcription and translation, developers can build with our innovative feature set with more exciting features to come.

Zoom’s web media stack supports major desktop, tablet, and mobile browsers. You can check out our full browser support matrix here. As each browser adopts additional web standards, the feature support only improves.

Get Video SDK Credentials to start building with the Zoom Video SDK, or if you are migrating from Twilio, see the migration guides and feature map. To connect with our developer team, check out the links below: 

• Developer sales
• Developer forum
• Developer support
• Developer partner services
• Developer online sales