webcam chats app - p2p vs fms

I'm currently developing a website in which I want to stick webcam chats between the users. Each client has an account and can call up a diff开发者_如何学Cerent client when he needs some help.

I'm thinking about setting up a flash media server or creating p2p (cirrus) connections between the clients. Pretty sure that the first solution will work just fine, however the cost of the hosting might be much higher. I'm worried that the p2p solution might cause some problems to the users, as then might be hidden behind some firewalls or be in some networks that don't allow them to create a p2p connection with a remote computer.

Which one would you use?

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All cam products i have worked on have used FMS without a problem but if cost is an issue red5 is open source alternative to FMS. http://www.red5.org/

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Using Adobe Cirrus is not a good idea, because:

• yep, firewall can be a problem (UDP protocol is disabled etc.)
• Adobe has not publicly announced the Commercial availability of Cirrus, so there is no guarantee it'll be available everytime in the future, that's why if you want to build p2p based chat what is surely workable, you have to use FMS4, what is not really a cheap solution.

You can find my summary about media servers here: I want to install a RTMP server

If you have any questions, please ask.

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Michael Thornburgh, one of the people who developed RTMFP, discusses this subject in a thread in the FMS forum. It includes a link to his presentation about P2P at Adobe MAX.