# nilstate/icey

Real-time media stack and lightweight libwebrtc alternative, built in C++20

Repository: https://github.com/nilstate/icey
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/icey
Homepage: https://0state.com/icey
Language: C++
License: LGPL-2.1
License Family: copyleft
Last push: 2026-06-30T05:40:25+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 92/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 90, release rhythm 89, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 5305, "days_push": 64, "days_rel": 76, "gap_med": 2, "n_releases_24m": 12}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 1367, forks 352 (observed 2026-08-28T04:04:31.407899+00:00)

## What it is
icey is a modular C++20 real-time media toolkit that unifies WebRTC, FFmpeg encoding/decoding, signalling, and TURN relay into a single PacketStream graph runtime. It serves as a lightweight alternative to Google's libWebRTC, with Rust bindings and a Docker-based demo server.

## Use cases
- stream RTSP camera feeds to the browser via WebRTC
- build a live video pipeline from capture to network in one process
- replace libWebRTC with a fast-building lightweight C++ media stack
- encode and stream HEVC/AAC with FFmpeg codecs over WebRTC
- embed WebRTC, signalling, and TURN into a C++ application
- bridge IP cameras to web viewers without plugins
- use WebRTC media from Rust via bindings

## When to choose
- you need WebRTC plus media capture/encoding/signalling in one C++ runtime
- libWebRTC's build time, binary size, or BoringSSL conflicts are a problem
- you want FFmpeg codec flexibility instead of bundled codecs
- you need built-in TURN (RFC 5766) and Symple signalling

## When to avoid
- you only need a bare WebRTC data channel and prefer a minimal library like libdatachannel
- you need a GObject/GStreamer plugin ecosystem
- you require a permissively licensed library (it is LGPL-2.1+)
- you need a mature, battle-tested stack at large scale

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: active
- function: video-processing, audio-processing, networking, http-server, websocket, cryptography, sdk
- domain: media, web-development, developer-tools, cross-platform
- platform: cpp, cross-platform, windows, rust
- tags: webrtc, ffmpeg, rtsp, packetstream, turn-server, signalling, libwebrtc-alternative, live-streaming, rust-bindings, video, audio, real-time, macos, linux, docker

## Member repositories
- nilstate/icey (main) score 92

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:04:31.407899+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T04:41:08.741617+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/nilstate/icey (fetched 2026-08-28T04:04:31.407899+00:00, sha 131339d4623f)
  - homepage: https://0state.com/icey (fetched 2026-08-29T11:58:12.843502+00:00, sha 87c434f3b14e)
  - site_page: https://0state.com/icey/docs (fetched 2026-08-29T11:58:12.848699+00:00, sha b5c4557190f3)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.