Overview
Self-host LiveKit servers for full control over your infrastructure, data, and configuration. Self-hosting enables you to deploy LiveKit on your own infrastructure, whether for local development, production deployments on virtual machines or Kubernetes, or distributed multi-region setups.
Self-hosting gives you complete control over your deployment, allowing you to customize configuration, manage your own data, and scale according to your specific needs. You can deploy LiveKit servers on a variety of platforms, from local development environments to production-grade infrastructure. You can also deploy LiveKit Agents to your own infrastructure, connecting them to your self-hosted LiveKit server.
Comparing self-hosted to LiveKit Cloud
When building with LiveKit, you can either self-host the open-source server or use the managed LiveKit Cloud service:
| Self-hosted | LiveKit Cloud | |
|---|---|---|
| Realtime media (audio, video, data) | Full support | Full support |
| Egress (recording, streaming) | Full support | Full support |
| Ingress (RTMP, WHIP, SRT ingest) | Full support | Full support |
| SIP & telephony | Full support | Full support including native telephony support for fully managed LiveKit Phone Numbers |
| Agents framework | Full support | Full support, including managed agent hosting. |
| Agent Builder | N/A | Included |
| Built-in inference | N/A | Included |
| Who manages it | You | LiveKit |
| Architecture | Single-home SFU | Global mesh SFU |
| Connection model | Single server per room | Each user connects to the nearest edge. |
| Max users per room | Up to ~3,000 | No limit |
| Analytics & telemetry | Custom / external. | LiveKit Cloud dashboard |
| Uptime guarantees | N/A | 99.99% |
Self-hosting topics
When self-hosting LiveKit, you can deploy agents to your own infrastructure alongside your LiveKit server. Agents connect to your self-hosted server and run on your own resources. See Custom agent deployments for details on deploying agents to Kubernetes, Render, or other container orchestration systems.
Manage your self-hosted LiveKit deployment with these topics.
| Topic | Description | Use cases |
|---|---|---|
| Running locally | Get LiveKit running locally for development and testing with minimal setup. | Local development, testing, and prototyping. |
| Deployment | Deploy LiveKit servers to production with SSL, load balancing, and TURN configuration. | Production deployments, secure configurations, and network setup. |
| Virtual machines | Deploy LiveKit servers on virtual machines for production use. | VM-based deployments, cloud infrastructure, and traditional server setups. |
| Kubernetes | Deploy LiveKit servers on Kubernetes clusters for scalable, containerized deployments. | Container orchestration, scalable deployments, and cloud-native infrastructure. |
| Distributed multi-region | Deploy LiveKit servers across multiple regions for global distribution. | Global deployments, low-latency access, and multi-region redundancy. |
| Firewall configuration | Configure firewalls and network settings for your LiveKit deployment. | Network security, port management, and access control. |
| Benchmarks | Measure and optimize performance of your self-hosted LiveKit deployment. | Performance testing, capacity planning, and optimization. |
| Egress | Set up egress services for recording and streaming from your self-hosted deployment. | Recording rooms, streaming to platforms, and media export. |
| Ingress | Set up ingress services to bring external media sources into your LiveKit rooms. | RTMP ingest, WHIP streams, and external media integration. |
| SIP server | Deploy and configure SIP servers for telephony integration with your self-hosted LiveKit. | Phone call integration, SIP trunking, and telephony features. |
In this section
Learn how to self-host LiveKit servers: