webrtc-rs/rtc Roadmap

[rainliu]

RTC Project Roadmap

Architecture: Sans-I/O WebRTC Implementation in Rust
Last Updated: January 2026

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Project Vision

Build a production-ready, runtime-independent WebRTC stack in pure Rust using the sans-I/O architecture pattern,
providing developers with complete control over networking, threading, and async runtime integration while maintaining
full WebRTC specification compliance.

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Current Status

✅ Completed Features

Core Protocol Stack

• ✅ ICE (Interactive Connectivity Establishment) with STUN/TURN support
• ✅ ICE Restart support
• ✅ DTLS (Datagram Transport Layer Security) v1.2
• ✅ SCTP (Stream Control Transmission Protocol)
• ✅ RTP/RTCP (Real-time Transport Protocol)
• ✅ SRTP with AEAD AES-GCM support (RFC 7714)
• ✅ SDP (Session Description Protocol) with offer/answer
• ✅ Unified Plan SDP (modern API)
• ✅ BUNDLE support
• ✅ mDNS (Multicast DNS) for local network discovery
• ✅ ICE TCP candidates (passive/active)

WebRTC Features

• ✅ Data Channels (reliable & unreliable, configurable)
• ✅ Media Tracks (audio/video)
• ✅ Simulcast (send & receive)
• ✅ SVC (Scalable Video Coding)
• ✅ Add/Remove tracks at runtime
• ✅ Insertable Streams
• ✅ Trickle ICE
• ✅ Statistics API

Interceptors & Media Processing

• ✅ Interceptor framework for RTP/RTCP manipulation
• ✅ NACK (Negative Acknowledgment) interceptor
• ✅ TWCC (Transport Wide Congestion Control) interceptor
• ✅ Sender/Receiver Report interceptors

Codec Support

• ✅ VP8/VP9 packetizers and depacketizers
• ✅ H.264/H.265 packetizers and depacketizers
• ✅ AV1 support
• ✅ Opus audio
• ✅ PCM audio
• ✅ IVF reader/writer for disk I/O

Architecture

• ✅ Sans-I/O design with poll_* and handle_* APIs
• ✅ Runtime-independent (works with tokio, async-std, smol, blocking I/O)
• ✅ Modular crate structure (15 composable crates)
• ✅ Zero-copy packet processing where possible

Development & Quality

• ✅ 30+ comprehensive examples (data channels, media streaming, simulcast, broadcast, etc.)
• ✅ Integration tests with WebRTC (browser) interoperability
• ✅ API documentation on docs.rs
• ✅ CI/CD pipeline with automated testing

🚧 In Progress / Partially Complete

• N/A

🔴 Missing Features

• ❌ Jitter Buffer interceptor
• ❌ FEC (Forward Error Correction) interceptor
• ❌ Full Congestion Control (Google Congestion Control / BBR)
• ❌ Complete DTLS Restart support
• ❌ PeerConnection serialization/deserialization
• ❌ Automated performance/allocation testing in CI
• ❌ Automated fuzzing (oss-fuzz integration)
• ❌ Auto changelog generation
• ❌ Embedded/IoT support
• ❌ FFI C API
• ❌ TCP TURN support

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Roadmap

Phase 1: Stability & Polish (Q1 2026)

Goal: Make production-ready with excellent developer experience

1.1 Bug Fixes & Stability

• Address all critical TODOs and FIXMEs in codebase
• Resolve flaky integration tests
• Improve error handling and error messages
• Add more validation for invalid inputs

1.2 Documentation & Examples

• Complete API documentation coverage (aim for 100%)
• Add "Getting Started" guide for common use cases
• Create migration guide from traditional WebRTC libraries
• Add troubleshooting guide
• Document performance tuning best practices
• Add more real-world examples:
  • Video conferencing server
  • Screen sharing
  • File transfer over data channels
  • Selective forwarding unit (SFU) implementation
  • Recording server (save multiple streams to disk)

1.3 Testing & Quality

• Increase unit test coverage to >80%
• Add more WebRTC interoperability tests (Chrome, Firefox, Safari)
• Automated fuzz testing in CI
• Create test suite for NAT traversal scenarios
• Add stress tests for concurrent connections
• Automated performance/allocation testing in CI

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Phase 2: Performance & Optimization (Q2 2026)

Goal: Optimize for production workloads and high-performance scenarios

2.1 Performance Optimization

• Profile hot paths and optimize critical sections
• Reduce allocations in packet processing paths
• Optimize DTLS handshake performance
• Improve ICE candidate gathering speed
• Optimize SRTP encryption/decryption (leverage hardware acceleration where possible)
• Add SIMD optimizations where applicable
• SCTP performance improvements

2.2 Benchmarking & Testing

• Create comprehensive benchmark suite
• Benchmark against other WebRTC implementations
• Add CI performance regression testing
• Document performance characteristics
• Publish performance comparison results

2.3 Memory Efficiency

• Audit memory usage patterns
• Reduce memory footprint per connection
• Implement better buffer pooling
• Add memory usage documentation
• Memory profiling tools integration

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Phase 3: Advanced Features (Q3 2026)

Goal: Add advanced WebRTC features and expand ecosystem

3.1 Media Quality & Resilience

• Jitter Buffer improvements (if not in Phase 1)
  • Adaptive strategies based on network conditions
  • Low-latency vs quality tradeoffs
• Full Congestion Control 🔴 Critical for production
  • Google Congestion Control (GCC) implementation
  • BBR congestion control
  • Integration with TWCC feedback
  • Bandwidth probing and estimation
• FEC (Forward Error Correction) Interceptor
  • FlexFEC support
  • RED (Redundant Encoding) support
  • Configurable FEC strategies
• H.264 Interceptor 🟠 High Priority
  • Analyze and fix common issues (missing SPS/PPS with IDR frames)
  • Automatic bitstream repair
  • Parameter set injection

3.2 Protocol Extensions

• Perfect Negotiation pattern support
• WebRTC Stats improvements (align with latest W3C spec)
• ICE consent freshness (RFC 7675)
• BUNDLE policy improvements
• RTX (Retransmission) support improvements

3.3 Codec Support

• Expand audio codec support (Opus optimizations, additional codecs)
• Improve H.264/H.265 handling and negotiation
• Add AV1 support improvements (packetization edge cases)
• Codec negotiation enhancements
• Better handling of codec parameters and profiles

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Phase 4: Language Bindings & Ecosystem (Q4 2026)

Goal: Make RTC accessible from other languages and build ecosystem

4.1 FFI & Language Bindings

• Complete C API (merge ffi branch)
• Create C header files and documentation
• Python bindings (PyO3)
• Node.js bindings (napi-rs)
• Go bindings (via CGO)
• WASM bindings for browser
• Cross-language example applications

4.2 Integration Libraries

• Integration with popular async runtimes
  • Tokio adapter with best practices
  • async-std adapter
  • smol adapter
• WebSocket signaling library
• HTTP/REST signaling library
• Redis-based signaling for distributed systems

4.3 Higher-Level APIs

• "Batteries included" wrapper for common use cases
• Simplified API for beginners
• Opinionated defaults for quick prototyping
• Framework integrations (e.g., Actix, Axum)

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Phase 5: Production Features (2027+)

Goal: Enterprise-ready features for production deployments

5.1 Scalability & Infrastructure

• Connection pooling strategies
• Distributed ICE coordination
• Horizontal scaling patterns
• Load balancing support
• Multi-threaded optimizations
• Better SettingEngine for SFU use cases

5.2 Observability & Monitoring

• Structured logging with tracing
• Metrics export (Prometheus format)
• OpenTelemetry integration
• Connection quality metrics
• Diagnostic tools and utilities
• Real-time debugging tools

5.3 Security & Hardening

• Security audit by external firm 🔴 Critical before 1.0
• Automated fuzzing in production (continuous oss-fuzz)
• DTLS 1.3 support
• Enhanced certificate validation
• Rate limiting and DoS protection
• Security best practices guide
• CVE response process

5.4 Compliance & Standards

• Full W3C WebRTC 1.0 compliance
• RFC compliance verification
• Standards-based testing suite
• Regular spec update tracking

5.5 Developer Experience

• Auto changelog generation
• Automated release process
• Better error messages and diagnostics
• Migration guides between versions

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Future Exploration (Beyond 2027)

Emerging Technologies

• QUIC transport integration
  • WebRTC over QUIC
  • Performance comparisons with UDP
• WebTransport support
• WebCodecs integration
• WebNN (Neural Networks) integration for ML features
• Post-quantum cryptography exploration

Embedded & IoT

• Embedded/IoT platform support
  • no_std compatibility where possible
  • Reduced memory footprint variants
  • Embedded-friendly examples
  • ARM/RISC-V optimizations

Ecosystem Growth

• SFU (Selective Forwarding Unit) reference implementation
• MCU (Multipoint Control Unit) reference implementation
• TURN server implementation (pure Rust)
• STUN server implementation
• Signaling server reference implementations
• Media server framework

Developer Experience

• Interactive tutorial website
• Video course/tutorials
• Conference talks and presentations
• Regular blog posts on WebRTC topics
• Community forum/discussions

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Contributing to the Roadmap

This roadmap is a living document and we welcome community input:

1. Feature Requests: Open an issue with the enhancement label
2. Prioritization: Join discussions on Discord or GitHub
3. Implementation: Check items you're interested in implementing
4. Sponsorship: Priority can be influenced by sponsors' needs

Priority Levels

• 🔴 Critical: Blocks production use or causes data loss
• 🟠 High: Important for production deployments
• 🟡 Medium: Nice to have, improves user experience
• 🟢 Low: Future enhancements, non-urgent

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Production-Ready Criteria for 1.0

• Complete WebRTC 1.0 spec compliance
• External security audit passed
• Automated fuzzing infrastructure
• Above 80% test coverage
• Comprehensive documentation
• Performance benchmarks published
• Multiple production deployments
• Stable API (no breaking changes planned)
• Active community and maintenance commitment

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Comparison with Pion WebRTC

This roadmap incorporates learnings from Pion WebRTC's roadmap. Here's how we
compare:

Feature Comparison of Pion vs RTC

Feature	Pion Version	RTC Status	Priority
Core Protocol Stack
ICE (Full)	1.1.0	✅ Complete	-
DTLS (Native)	1.2.0	✅ Pure Rust	-
STUN	1.1.0	✅ Complete	-
TURN	2.1.0	✅ Complete	-
TCP TURN	2.2.0	✅ Complete	-
mDNS Candidates	2.1.0	✅ Complete	-
SCTP	1.0.0	✅ Complete	-
WebRTC Features
Data Channels	1.1.0	✅ Complete	-
Configurable Reliability	2.0.0	✅ Complete	-
Trickle ICE	2.1.0	✅ Complete	-
Add/Remove Tracks	2.2.0	✅ Complete	-
Unified Plan	2.0.0	✅ Complete	-
Bundling	1.1.0	✅ Complete	-
ICE Restart	3.0.0	✅ Complete	-
ICE TCP (Passive)	3.0.0	✅ Complete	-
ICE TCP (Active)	4.0.0	✅ Complete	-
ICE Regular Nomination	2.0.0	✅ Complete	-
Media & Codecs
VP8/VP9	1.0.0	✅ Complete	-
H.264/H.265	Various	✅ Packetizers	-
AV1	3.2.0	✅ Complete	-
Opus	Various	✅ Complete	-
PCM	2.2.0	✅ Complete	-
Advanced Features
Simulcast	3.0.0	✅ Send & Receive	-
Sender/Receiver Reports	3.1.0	✅ Complete	-
TWCC	3.1.0	✅ Complete	-
Congestion Control	3.2.0	🚧 TWCC only	🔴 Critical
Jitter Buffer	4.0.0	❌ Missing	🔴 Critical
SRTP AEAD-GCM	3.0.0	✅ Complete	-
Interceptor API	3.0.0	✅ Complete	-
NACK Interceptor	3.0.0	✅ Complete	-
Stats Interceptor	3.2.0	✅ Complete	-
H.264 Interceptor	Roadmap	❌ Missing	🟢 Low
FEC Interceptor	Planned	❌ Missing	🟡 Medium
DTLS Restart	Planned	🚧 Partial	🟡 Medium
Development Infrastructure
Automated Fuzzing	Production	❌ Missing	🔴 Critical
Performance CI	Production	❌ Missing	🔴 High
Allocation Tracking	Production	❌ Missing	🟠 High
Auto Changelog	Production	❌ Missing	🟡 Medium
API Features
PeerConnection Serialize	Roadmap	❌ Missing	🟠 Medium
WASM Support	2.0.0	🚧 Partial	🟡 Medium
Mobile Support	1.2.0	✅ Rust works	-
Embedded/IoT (TinyGo)	Roadmap	❌ no_std	🟡 Future

✅ Features We Have (Pion Parity)

• ✅ Complete protocol stack (ICE, DTLS, SCTP, RTP/RTCP, SRTP, SDP)
• ✅ STUN and TURN support (including TCP TURN)
• ✅ Trickle ICE and mDNS
• ✅ Data Channels with configurable reliability
• ✅ Simulcast (send & receive)
• ✅ Interceptor API (NACK, TWCC, Sender/Receiver Reports, Stats)
• ✅ Unified Plan SDP
• ✅ BUNDLE support
• ✅ Add/Remove tracks at runtime
• ✅ ICE Restart
• ✅ AV1, H.264, H.265, VP8, VP9 support
• ✅ UDPMux capability (single port for multiple connections)
• ✅ SRTP AEAD AES-GCM
• ✅ ICE TCP (active/passive candidates)
• ✅ Insertable Streams API

🚧 Features We're Missing (Need Implementation)

• 🔴 Jitter Buffer - Critical for smooth media playback (Pion 4.0.0)
• 🔴 Full Congestion Control - GCC/BBR implementation (Pion 3.2.0)
• 🔴 Automated Fuzzing - oss-fuzz integration (Pion has this)
• 🟠 H.264 Interceptor - Bitstream fixing for common issues (Pion roadmap)
• 🟠 DTLS Restart - Complete implementation (Pion roadmap)
• 🟠 PeerConnection Serialization - Save/restore connection state (Pion roadmap)
• 🟡 FEC Interceptor - Forward Error Correction (planned)
• 🟡 Embedded/IoT Support - Equivalent to TinyGo support (future exploration)

🎯 Our Unique Advantages

• Sans-I/O Architecture - Complete control over I/O, threading, and runtime
• Pure Rust - Memory safety, no CGO overhead, no OpenSSL dependency
• Runtime Independence - Works with any async runtime or blocking I/O
• Modular Design - 15 independent crates for flexible composition
• Zero-Copy Design - Efficient packet processing where possible

📊 Development Infrastructure Comparison

Feature	Pion	RTC	Priority
Automated fuzzing (oss-fuzz)	✅	❌	🔴 Critical
Performance regression testing	✅	❌	🔴 High
Allocation tracking in CI	✅	❌	🟠 High
Auto changelog generation	✅	❌	🟡 Medium
Comprehensive examples	✅	✅ (30+)	✅ Done
Browser interop tests	✅	✅	✅ Done

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Communication

• GitHub Issues: Bug reports and feature requests
• Discord: Real-time discussions and support
• GitHub Discussions: Long-form technical discussions
• Blog: Major announcements and technical deep-dives
• Roadmap Updates: Quarterly reviews and adjustments

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Questions or suggestions? Open an issue or join us on Discord!