RTCDataChannel API

As well as sending media streams between peers using WebRTC, it is also possible to use the DataChannel API to send arbitrary streams of data. Although many people commonly refer to this as the RTCDataChannel API, it is more accurately defined as just the WebRTC DataChannel API and is created by using the var datachannel = peerconnection.createDataChannel(label); constructor. It is a very flexible and powerful solution that has been specifically designed to be similar to the WebSocket API through the send() method and the onmessage event.

At the time of writing this chapter, this API is still in a state of flux with the varying browser implementations still struggling with standardization.