# xiph/opus

Modern audio compression for the internet.

Repository: https://github.com/xiph/opus
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/opus
Homepage: https://opus-codec.org/
Language: C
License: NOASSERTION
License Family: other
Topics: audio, codec, compression, c
Last push: 2026-08-24T14:11:03+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 79/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 99, release rhythm 40, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 4397, "days_push": 9, "days_rel": 721, "gap_med": 0.0, "n_releases_24m": 3}
- flags: no_license
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 3293, forks 800 (observed 2026-08-28T04:07:54.029628+00:00)

## What it is
libopus is the reference implementation of the Opus audio codec, an IETF-standardized (RFC 6716) royalty-free codec for interactive speech and music over the Internet. It scales from low-bitrate narrowband speech to high-quality stereo music with very low latency, and version 1.5+ adds deep-learning-based packet loss recovery (DRED).

## Use cases
- encode and decode audio for voice over IP calls
- low-latency audio for videoconferencing
- in-game voice chat compression
- streaming music over the internet
- compress audio files to opus format
- real-time audio transmission over lossy networks
- embed an audio codec in a C application

## When to choose
- you need low-latency interactive speech or music transmission
- you want a royalty-free, open standard codec
- you need to scale quality from 6 kb/s speech to 510 kb/s stereo music
- you need robustness against packet loss in real-time communication

## When to avoid
- you need lossless audio compression
- you only need simple file conversion without writing C code (use opus-tools instead)
- you need video compression

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: stable
- function: audio-processing, compression, machine-learning
- domain: media, speech-processing
- platform: cross-platform, c, cpp, embedded, windows
- tags: audio-codec, voip, speech, rfc-6716, royalty-free, low-latency, streaming, audio, real-time, linux, macos

## Member repositories
- xiph/opus (main) score 79

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:07:54.029628+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 2026-08-30T07:22:45.008406+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/xiph/opus (fetched 2026-08-28T04:07:54.029628+00:00, sha 8c6dd0a6b454)
  - homepage: https://opus-codec.org/ (fetched 2026-08-29T09:35:43.739518+00:00, sha d68b8f41f386)
  - site_page: https://opus-codec.org/docs (fetched 2026-08-29T09:35:43.742086+00:00, sha 0ea959480a4e)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.