Element Call
Element Call starts moving to new LiveKit transports and falls back to remote SFUs when needed.
Comparison · Meetings
Fourwaves vs SRS
A side-by-side editorial comparison of Fourwaves and SRS — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Fourwaves vs SRS: at a glance
What is Fourwaves?
Fourwaves follows its participant inbox with a week of admin fixes and security hardening.
Fourwaves ships small daily updates. After the Oct 19 participant DM inbox came: admins of organizations with a delegated payment gateway can connect it to events without waiting for approval, sessions without times can have presentations reordered, and a second round of fixes from an internal security audit. One entry is a header-divider style change.
What is SRS?
SRS opens a 7.0 line built on a Go proxy tier, and drops features it no longer wants to carry.
SRS shipped the stable 6.0 line's first release on 12 August and, three hours later, the first development build of 7.0. The 6.0 line is now in pure maintenance — the r1 changelog is seven merges of DVR, WebRTC and edge fixes. Everything new is in 7.0-d0: RTSP playback, RTMPS, IPv6 across every protocol, HEVC in both directions between RTMP and WebRTC, and HLS fMP4 segments for HEVC and LL-HLS.
Fourwaves vs SRS: editorial side-by-side
Fourwaves
5.0MEETINGS
Fourwaves follows its participant inbox with a week of admin fixes and security hardening.
◆ Current state
Fourwaves ships small daily updates. After the Oct 19 participant DM inbox came: admins of organizations with a delegated payment gateway can connect it to events without waiting for approval, sessions without times can have presentations reordered, and a second round of fixes from an internal security audit. One entry is a header-divider style change.
◆ Where it's heading
The product moves in two lanes: networking features for participants (DM alerts, then the inbox) and less organizer friction around payments, data tables and session scheduling. The security-audit follow-ups suggest more hardening releases are coming.
◆ Prediction
Expect more small organizer-workflow fixes and further security-audit releases. Participant messaging may get moderation or notification controls next.
SRS
6.3MEETINGS
SRS opens a 7.0 line built on a Go proxy tier, and drops features it no longer wants to carry.
◆ Current state
SRS shipped the stable 6.0 line's first release on 12 August and, three hours later, the first development build of 7.0. The 6.0 line is now in pure maintenance — the r1 changelog is seven merges of DVR, WebRTC and edge fixes. Everything new is in 7.0-d0: RTSP playback, RTMPS, IPv6 across every protocol, HEVC in both directions between RTMP and WebRTC, and HLS fMP4 segments for HEVC and LL-HLS.
◆ Where it's heading
The project is trading breadth of legacy surface for a narrower, better-covered core. 7.0-d0 removes the embedded GB28181 SIP server, multi-threading, Cygwin, and most configuration hot reload, while introducing a Go proxy server and origin-cluster architecture alongside the C++ media core. Protocol coverage keeps generalizing — each release makes a codec or an address family a property of the server rather than of one delivery path.
◆ Prediction
Expect the 7.0 line to run a long alpha and beta train the way 6.0 did, with the Go proxy and origin clustering carrying most of the remaining work and 6.0 continuing to receive backported fixes in parallel.
Alternatives to Fourwaves and SRS
Other Meetings products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Each card links to a full editorial trajectory and lets you pivot into a head-to-head comparison with either Fourwaves or SRS.
JW Player
JW Player moves CMAF VOD into the dashboard, adds AV1, and opens Broadcast Live to audio-only feeds.
HOMER
HOMER 11.0.369 fixes S3 auth on Ceph-based storage and stops compaction memory growth.
rtpengine
rtpengine opens the mr26.3 branch with a rollback message and leaner call state.
Nextcloud Talk Desktop
Nextcloud Talk Desktop 2.3.3 adds accessibility options and bundles Talk v25.0.6.
Nextcloud Talk
Nextcloud Talk patches v22 and v23 while v25 stable sits five weeks past its last RC.
See all Fourwaves alternatives → · See all SRS alternatives →
Recent activity from Fourwaves and SRS
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 4d agoFourwavesDelegated payment gateways connect to events without approval
- 5d agoFourwavesHeader divider now vertical on desktop
- 6d agoFourwavesReorder presentations in sessions without set times
- 7d agoFourwavesMore security fixes from the internal audit
- 8d agoFourwavesParticipants can now message each other from a new inbox
- 11d agoFourwavesFix: long file names no longer overflow the upload field
- 2mo agoSRSSRS 7.0-d0: Go proxy tier, RTSP playback, IPv6 across protocols ⚡
- 2mo agoSRS6.0-r1: DVR, WebRTC and edge fixes on the stable line
- 10mo agoSRSSRS 6.0 goes stable with H.265 across RTMP, HLS, TS and SRT ⚡
- 11mo agoSRS6.0-b3: use-after-free and HLS cleanup fixes
- 1y agoSRS6.0-b2: configurable SRT stream IDs and a WHIP transcoding fix
- 1y agoSRS6.0-b1: RTC crash fixes, Windows binary dropped
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Fourwaves and SRS?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. SRS is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 5.0), with 0 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is Fourwaves better than SRS?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. SRS is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 5.0), with 0 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other Meetings products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to Fourwaves?
Top Fourwaves alternatives in Meetings are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Fourwaves alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/fourwaves for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to SRS?
Top SRS alternatives in Meetings are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "SRS alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/srs for the full list with editorial commentary on each.