Building a Lightweight PWA Meeting App with Vanilla JavaScript and WebRTC

I recently built a small meeting application for our community’s internal discussions.

The goal wasn’t to replace Google Meet or Zoom.

It was to build something lightweight that solved exactly what we needed.

Stack
HTML
CSS
JavaScript
WebRTC
Progressive Web App
Render for hosting
Why Vanilla JavaScript?

I wanted to understand WebRTC without a framework hiding the implementation details.

Working directly with browser APIs made debugging easier and helped me understand peer connections much better.

Why Mesh Topology?

Our meetings usually have only a few participants.

A mesh network lets every participant connect directly to everyone else, which keeps the architecture simple for small groups.

Features
Peer-to-peer video calls
Audio mute and unmute
Background changer
Installable as a PWA
Responsive interface
Biggest Takeaway

Building real tools teaches concepts much faster than tutorials.

This project helped me understand WebRTC, media streams, browser APIs, and Progressive Web Apps while creating something our community could actually use.

If you’re learning WebRTC, I’d recommend building a small internal tool before trying to create a full video conferencing platform.
General Meet Prototype