WebTransport is a modern web API that facilitates low-latency, bidirectional communication between web browsers and servers over the Internet.
WebTransport is specified and maintained by the W3C and the IETF and is a rather recent standard.
It is designed to provide more efficient and flexible communication than traditional HTTP or WebSockets, especially for applications requiring real-time data exchange, such as gaming, video streaming, and live collaboration. WebTransport utilizes the QUIC protocol for its underlying transport, offering advantages like reduced connection setup times and improved security compared to TCP-based protocols. It supports both unidirectional and bidirectional streams, allowing for the transfer of data in a more optimized manner, making it suitable for high-performance, interactive web applications.
In terms of adoption, WebTransport is gaining traction. It is available today in Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge; with Mozilla Firefox having begun to implement support for it. Apple hasn’t made any moves to support WebTransport yet.
In many ways, WebTransport is seen as a technology that will replace WebRTC. This may well be true for some use cases such as live streaming, but in the foreseeable future is unlikely to happen for the majority of WebRTC usage which is focused around interactive communication.
