Welcome to ORTC!

ORTC (Object Real-Time Communications) is an API allowing developers to build next generation real-time communication applications for web, mobile, or server environments.

The ORTC API was designed by the W3C ORTC CG (Community Group) and originally founded by Hookflash in 2013. This innovative community group consists of over 100 participating members, notably including Google, Microsoft, and many other industry leaders. See history.

Microsoft has implemented the ORTC API to the Edge browser, and the ORTC Lib open source project was created to allow mobile developers to take advantage of the ORTC API within mobile applications. See implementations.

The ORTC API is on-the-wire compatible with WebRTC 1.0 and serves as the real-world implementation input for the future direction of the WebRTC API. In fact, many of ORTC’s objects are already incorporated into the WebRTC 1.0 API. See future.

The ORTC API was designed to allow the WebRTC 1.0 API to be written as a shim on top of the ORTC API. As demonstrated with adapter.js and implemented in ORTC Lib, this allows developers to use the more familiar WebRTC 1.0 API and later take full advantage of what the object model offers. See adapter.