Self-Hosting LiveKit

Why you probably don't want to — and what to do if you must

Understand the full operational reality of self-hosting LiveKit — and why LiveKit Cloud is the right choice for most teams. Covers Cloud-exclusive features, the self-hosting burden, and when self-hosting is genuinely required.

What You Build

Production self-hosted LiveKit deployment with agent workers, monitoring, and security hardening.

Prerequisites

->Course 5.2

Chapters

Self-hosting architecture & decision framework

25m

Why LiveKit Cloud is the right choice for most teams. Cloud-exclusive features you cannot replicate. The full operational burden of self-hosting. How to handle data sovereignty without self-hosting.

Cloud vs self-hostedArchitecture overviewHardware requirementsAgent worker deployment

Kubernetes deployment & server configuration

30m

Deploy with Helm charts on Kubernetes. Configure livekit.yaml (signaling, media ports, TLS, TURN). Set up Redis for multi-node coordination with persistence and Sentinel HA. Network requirements for WebRTC (UDP 50000-60000).

Helm chartsServer configNetwork requirementsTURN setup+1 more

Monitoring & security hardening

25m

Monitor with Prometheus metrics (room count, participant count, packet loss, CPU). Build Grafana dashboards and alerting rules. Harden security with Kubernetes network policies, TLS on all paths, API key rotation, and CORS configuration.

Prometheus metricsGrafana dashboardsAlerting rulesNetwork policies+2 more

Upgrades, backup & operations

20m

Rolling upgrades on Kubernetes with zero downtime. Back up Redis state, configs, and secrets. Recovery procedures for data loss, corruption, and full failure scenarios. Rollback with Helm.

Rolling upgradesBackup proceduresRecoveryMaintenance windows

What You Walk Away With

Clear understanding of why self-hosting is rarely justified, what Cloud-exclusive features you lose, and the full operational reality if self-hosting is genuinely required.