Building Real-Time Features with WebSockets and Stream SDK

Building MeetPro taught me more about real-time architecture than any tutorial could. Stream SDK handles the heavy lifting, but understanding what's happening underneath is critical when things go wrong.

Why Stream over raw WebRTC

Raw WebRTC is powerful but brutal to scale. You're responsible for signalling servers, TURN/STUN configuration, codec negotiation, and media quality adaptation. Stream abstracts all of this while giving you access to low-level hooks when you need them. For MeetPro, this meant shipping video conferencing in days instead of months.

Handling connection state in React

The trickiest part wasn't the video itself — it was managing connection state across components. I built a custom useCallState hook that wraps Stream's client, exposing connection status, participant list, and media tracks in a reactive, easy-to-consume API.

Lessons learned

Real-time features surface bugs that unit tests can't catch. I now run integration tests that simulate two browser sessions and assert on the video/audio state. It's slower to set up but catches race conditions before production.