Galene

Galene is a self-hosted WebRTC videoconferencing system designed to be easy to deploy while using moderate server resources. It is well-suited to both one-to-many sessions like lectures and traditional team meetings, using an SFU-style architecture for scalable media forwarding.

Key Features

• Multi-party audio and video with arbitrary numbers of streams
• Text chat, user status indicators (for example “raise hand”), and moderation tools
• Screen and window sharing, including sharing multiple windows
• Recording to disk and media streaming from local files
• Built-in TURN server and robust ICE handling with automatic flow restarts
• Codec support including VP8/VP9 (with SVC and simulcast), partial H.264 support, and preliminary AV1 support
• Bandwidth estimation and congestion control for low-latency sessions
• Administrative HTTP API for managing groups and users
• Password-based and token-based (OAuth2-style) authorization options
• Support for WHIP protocol

Use Cases

• University lectures, seminars, and tutorials with large audiences
• Team meetings with screen sharing and moderation controls
• Hosting community or academic conferences with multiple sessions

Limitations and Considerations

• No end-to-end encryption: media is decrypted and re-encrypted by the server, so the server must be trusted
• Many-to-many meetings scale quadratically with participant count, so capacity planning matters for larger interactive groups

Galene provides a practical WebRTC conferencing stack that prioritizes deployability, performance, and operational simplicity. It is especially strong for lecture-style sessions and lightweight deployments that still need modern conferencing features.