Transitioning Smoothly from Twilio to Azure Communication Services

Twilio recently announced that their Programmable Video API will be deprecated effective December 5, 2024. Azure Communication Services offers real-time video calling solutions for developers looking to migrate from Twilio’s Video API. Below is  a migration guide to add video to a Web (JavaScript) calling app.

Further details can be found in our Twilio to Azure Communication Services migration. documentation.

Azure Communication Services Video Calling

Azure Communication Services offers multichannel communication APIs for adding voice, video, chat, text messaging/SMS, email, and more to all your applications and is used by Microsoft Teams, LinkedIn, Dynamics, and many other customers whose stories can be found  here.

Azure Communication Services Video Calling features and integrated services:

• Calling client SDK, which can be embedded in websites and native applications
• Call Automation APIs, which allow services to manage and access calls
• Rooms APIs which adds common communication semantics to a voice or video call, such as roles and permissions for virtual appointments
• Phone Numbers and Direct routing, allowing you to acquire phone numbers directly from Azure or to bring your own.
• SDKs enabling you to reach users where they are: desktop & mobile web browsers, iOS, Android, and Windows native apps
• Interoperability with Teams. This is especially useful for business-to-consumer communication scenarios like virtual appointments, because many organizations already use Teams for employee communication.
• Open-source production-ready UI components to drop into your application
• High definition, efficient, and reliable video, with a variety of quality and diagnostic tools that simplify operations and troubleshooting
• Data Channel APIs providing high performance, low-latency access to Azure’s global network.

Migration guide for a browser video calling app

In this section we’ve provided architectural information for developers migrating a JavaScript browser video calling application. A step-by-step guide with code snippets and additional detail and guidance for other platforms is available in our migration documentation. 

These are the key steps for migrating an application:

• Installation and Project Setup: Get started with Azure Communication Services with ease.
• Creating Access Tokens: Understand the token generation process for secure authentication.
• Client Authentication: Ensure secure and authorized access for clients.
• Initiating and Ending Calls: Gain insights into starting and concluding video calls.
• Server-side Code for Local Deployment and Cleanup: Ensure your server-side code is primed for local deployment and testing.

For more details, check out the step-by-step guide in our Twilio to ACS migration documentation.