What is the difference between a STUN server and a signaling server?

22 May 2025 · 1 min

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0:49

A short YouTube dialogue (recorded May 22, 2025) that explains the difference between a STUN server and a signaling server for WebRTC. Speakers clarify that STUN provides public IP/candidates while the signaling server is used to exchange those candidates/SDP between peers; they also note STUN servers are often free and separate from signaling, and that free signaling servers tend to be abused and have been discontinued.

So what is the difference between a STAN server and a signaling server?
So you need both kinds of servers. The signaling server is where you exchange your STP and your candidates. And the reason people often think signaling server and stun server is the same is because you gather the candidates from the STAN server so that STAN server tells you your public IP address but you still need a way to send them to the other side. That's the signaling server.
I think some of it is also because STAN servers are free so they're just there and we never really need to go and deploy them when we build our first demo or hello World application. So we assume it is part of the signaling server and not something that is totally independent.
Yes, and we've seen free signaling servers but they all basically died. They're cheap to run but you see a lot of abuse so nobody runs them anymore.
Yep. Okay, thank you.
Thank you.