🚀 Integrating Video Calls in React Native with Jitsi Meet (Why I Switched from Raw WebRTC)
Recently, I integrated video conferencing into a mobile healthcare app called Anonymous Care — a platform connecting consultants (doctors) and patients, often anonymously.
The app was built with React Native (Expo-ejected), and I had previously worked with WebRTC directly — managing peer connections, signaling, TURN/STUN servers, and media streams manually. It worked, but maintaining it at scale became complex.
For this project, I chose Jitsi Meet, a powerful, open-source video conferencing solution built on top of WebRTC. It offers:
✅ Built-in signaling
✅ Free use and modify
✅ Secure, encrypted rooms
✅ Native SDKs for iOS/Android
✅ Customizable UI
✅ Easy self-hosting support
🛠️ What I Did:
Ejected from Expo to support native module integration
•Installed the @jitsi/react-native-sdk
•Fixed issues like missing event listeners (
onConferenceTerminated, etc.)
•Handled Android camera/mic permissions manually
•Cleaned up sessions on unmount to avoid crashes
🔁 Why I Recommend Jitsi:
•It’s fully open source, actively maintained by the community
•Saves time while giving full control
•Ideal for building chat, edtech, telehealth, or internal tools
💬 Have you used Jitsi before or implemented your own video call solution? I’d love to hear about it!
Top comments (1)
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