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The Vialer-js project
Vialer-js is a free, pluggable, open-source communication platform that focusses on customization, development pace and platform reach. Its philosophy is to empower developers and vendors to build their own communication tools at a fast pace, while maintaining flexibility of the most opinionated implementation details.
Customization
From application functionality to the documentation look-and-feel; all parts about Vialer-js can be styled, branded to fit a corporate identity or customized through the use of plugins that hook into the core functionality. The build system accomodates this branding flexibility and offers an easy way to customize naming, testing, default configurations and more.
Development pace
The Bologna Vialer-js brand uses SIP-over-websockets and relies on a suitable SRTP backend to tap in to all of the call features a PBX like Asterisk or Freeswitch has to offer: PSTN connectivity, on-hold, waiting music, transfers, queues, IVR and callgroups. Besides dealing with audio calls, video through a PBX may be another interesting application to your end-users. However, having a PBX in-between a call may not always be the desired situation.
A decentralized approach with a custom WebRTC signalling protocol and p2p connections between call participants may be more appropriate in situations where scalability and/or privacy concerns dictate that (video) data needs to flow between peers instead of through a centralized service. Another reason to use a custom signalling protocol, would be that features like chat and file transfers are much easier to implement without having to deal with the complexity of the SIP protocol.
The purpose of Vialer-js is not only to facilitate different use-cases, but also to be able to integrate them in one unified communication experience for your end-users. In our view, a user will be entirely free to use a VoIP-service provider with Vialer-js, while at the same time being able to communicate p2p with their friends over a decentralized signalling network.
Platform reach
Vialer-js is a readable environment-agnostic ES2017 codebase that uses a simple but powerful reactive data-oriented design. This allows it to run on several suitable JavaScript runtimes. At the moment, this includes:
- Blink-compatible WebExtension browsers (Opera, Chrome, Chromium)
- Electron desktop app
Headless Node.js support is implemented partially, to be able to run unit tests without having to mock data. Calling from Node.js is not supported yet though.
Want to learn more?
Great! Nice to have you interested in this project. Head over to the quickstart guide to learn more about how to work with Vialer-js. Are you interested in contributing or would you like to see some feature implemented? Please read our code of conduct and contributing guide first. Have any non-technical questions? Feel free to contact us.