Daily review
A broad video API platform for building real-time calls, recording, and streaming.
Reviewed by iTechGuides Editors · Editorial team · Updated Oct 2026
Daily provides developer APIs, SDKs, and cloud infrastructure for embedding real-time video and audio into applications. It is designed for startups, product teams, and enterprises building video communication, live-streaming, education, healthcare, and other real-time experiences. Support spans web, iOS, Android, and API development, with capabilities for calls, recording, compositing, transcription, messaging, analytics, and telephony.
Pricing is usage-based rather than organized around named subscription tiers. The Free allowance includes 10,000 free participant minutes every month. Video and audio calls start at $0.004 per participant minute, with automatic volume discounts. Cloud video recording costs $0.01349 per recorded minute, while audio-only recording costs $0.005 per recorded minute. RTMP Live Streaming costs $0.015 per encoded minute, and HLS Live Streaming costs $0.03 per encoded minute. This structure suits teams that want to align costs with activity, but requires separate tracking for call, recording, and streaming usage.
Daily’s main strength is breadth across the real-time video stack. Its platform includes cloud, local, raw-track, and output-byte-stream recording; custom layouts, overlays, and compositing; REST APIs and webhooks; data messaging, permissions, and roles; and call-quality analytics and dashboards. Real-time transcription, background blur, noise cancellation, track subscriptions, simulcast, and bandwidth management extend the implementation options. Choose Daily when one platform needs to support browser, mobile, and native experiences at substantial scale. Teams building only a simple calling feature may prefer a narrower video tool with fewer capabilities to manage.
Daily pros and cons
- Where it wins
- Supports sessions with up to 100,000 active participants
- SDKs cover JavaScript, React Native, iOS, Android, Flutter, and Python
- Combines calls, recording, streaming, transcription, and analytics
- Where it doesn't
- Usage-based billing can require careful cost planning
- Streaming, recording, and calls use separate per-minute rates
- Its broad feature set may exceed the needs of simple video apps
Daily fact sheet, pricing and score →
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