Thinh Dang

Experienced Fintech Software Engineer Driving High-Performance Solutions

Why Managing LiveKit at Scale Feels Like Flying Blind

Running LiveKit at scale is powerful — but it can also feel like you’re managing a live concert with the lights off. You’ve got rooms, participants, servers, and recordings all moving at once, and without a clear dashboard, visibility becomes guesswork.

Typical pain points include:

  • SSH-ing into servers just to check logs
  • Writing ad-hoc scripts to query APIs
  • Manually tracking who’s connected where
  • Managing egress jobs without clear feedback
  • No unified view of SIP or telephony integrations

If that sounds familiar, you’ll immediately see why LiveKit Dashboard exists — it turns that scattered workflow into a single, actionable control panel.

What Exactly Is LiveKit Dashboard?

LiveKit Dashboard is a stateless, self-hosted management app built with FastAPI and Jinja2. It communicates directly with your LiveKit servers using the official Python SDK — fetching live data on demand, with zero persistence or external dependencies.

Design Principles That Keep It Simple

  • Stateless by Design – No database or background workers. Every request reflects real-time data.
  • Self-Hosted First – Deploy anywhere, stay in control of your infrastructure.
  • Security-Focused – Includes HTTP Basic Auth, CSRF protection, and hardened security headers.
  • Progressively Enhanced – Runs without JavaScript, upgraded with HTMX for real-time interactions.

Key Features That Make Operations Easier

🏠 Overview Dashboard

Overview Dashboard

Your “cockpit view.” Monitor room counts, participant distribution, SFU health, and API latency — refreshed every few seconds.

Example: A DevOps engineer can spot API latency spikes within seconds instead of waiting for alerting tools to trigger. It’s like watching your cluster’s heartbeat live.

🚪 Room Management

Room Management

Create, view, and control rooms instantly — with visibility into active participants, tracks, and session states.

Real-World Use Case: Imagine a live streaming platform where a user reports “no video.” You open the dashboard, drill into the room, and see that their video track is muted — no SSH, no script, no waiting.

👥 Participant Controls

View participant connection health, media tracks, and latency metrics — and manage permissions or remove users with a single click.

This transforms support from “reactive triage” to “proactive resolution.”

📹 Egress and Recording Management

Egress and Recording Management

Start composite recordings, monitor live jobs, and download finished files — all from the browser.

Before: Running curl commands and checking job IDs manually. After: Click “Start Recording,” watch the status live, and access the file when done.

📞 Optional SIP Integration

Outbound Calls Inbound Calls

Manage SIP trunks, routing, and telephony workflows directly from the interface when enabled.

🧪 Token Generator Sandbox

Quickly generate test tokens with configurable roles and TTLs. Perfect for debugging or validating new room settings before deploying to production.

Under the Hood: A Simple Yet Scalable Architecture

User Browser ─▶ FastAPI + Jinja2 (SSR) ─▶ LiveKitClient SDK ─▶ Your LiveKit Server

Why this matters:

  • Horizontally scalable: Run multiple instances with no coordination
  • Always current: Every page fetches live data
  • Resilient: Restart anytime — no state to lose
  • Lightweight: Minimal CPU and memory usage

Getting Started in Minutes

🐳 With Docker

git clone <repository-url>
cd livekit-dashboard
cp .env.example .env  # Add your credentials
make docker-run

💻 Manual Setup

make install
export LIVEKIT_URL="https://your-livekit-server.com"
export LIVEKIT_API_KEY="your-api-key"
export LIVEKIT_API_SECRET="your-api-secret"
export ADMIN_USERNAME="admin"
export ADMIN_PASSWORD="secure-password"
make dev

Then visit http://localhost:8000 and log in — your LiveKit world, finally visible.

Before & After: Real Operational Wins

Scenario 1: Debugging Connection Issues

  • Before: Using CLI to query the API.
  • After: Open Dashboard → see 15 rooms, 127 participants → spot one room with connection drops → inspect the participant → fix instantly.

Scenario 2: Recording Oversight

  • Before: Manually track egress job IDs.
  • After: Dashboard shows all active recordings, with real-time job status and instant access to download URLs.

Scenario 3: Capacity Planning

  • Before: Write API queries to calculate load.
  • After: Dashboard overview shows distribution by room size and participant platform — updated automatically every few seconds.

These aren’t just convenience improvements — they directly reduce downtime and support overhead.

Built for Real-Time Reliability

Real-Time Analytics Example

async def get_enhanced_analytics(self):
    # Fetch live participant metrics
    ...
    return {
        "connection_success": calculate_success_rate(),
        "platforms": {
            "Web": 60,
            "iOS": 20,
            "Android": 15,
            "React Native": 5
        }
    }

Security First

def verify_credentials(username, password):
    return secrets.compare_digest(username, expected_user) and \
           secrets.compare_digest(password, expected_pass)

Your credentials never leave your environment — no third-party calls, no logs.

Current Limitations & Roadmap

Today:

  • Single admin account
  • No historical trend tracking (stateless)
  • Basic participant control (kick/mute only)

Coming Soon:

  • WebSocket updates
  • Rich participant analytics
  • Recording previews
  • Mobile-friendly UI
  • Optional persistent analytics

Quick FAQ

Does it work with LiveKit Cloud? No — it’s built for self-hosted LiveKit servers where you control API access.

Is it secure? Yes — all data flows within your own environment. No external services involved.

Can I extend it? Absolutely. Add routes, analytics, or custom integrations easily — it’s open and modular.

Resource usage? Lightweight — runs on a single core and 512 MB of RAM.

Example Configuration

LIVEKIT_URL=https://your-livekit-server.com
LIVEKIT_API_KEY=your-api-key
LIVEKIT_API_SECRET=your-api-secret
ADMIN_USERNAME=admin
ADMIN_PASSWORD=secure-password
ENABLE_SIP=false

Why This Matters: From Monitoring to Mastery

For teams running real-time systems, visibility is power. The LiveKit Dashboard turns management from reactive firefighting into confident, data-driven operation.

You don’t just “check if things work” — you see them working.

Start now:

Built with ❤️ for developers who love clarity and control.

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