I need live video with screen sharing, recording, and moderation in one product, what stack makes sense

If you want live video + screen sharing + recording + moderation in one product, the stack that makes the most sense depends on whether you want to build fast or own the infrastructure.

Best practical stack for most teams

Frontend

• React / Next.js
• WebRTC client for live media
• Tailwind or similar UI kit
• State management: Zustand / Redux Toolkit if needed

Video layer

• Managed video platform:
  • LiveKit (great balance of control + speed)
  • Daily
  • Agora
  • Twilio Live if you’re already in Twilio ecosystem

Why this is the sweet spot

• Native support for:
  • live calls / rooms
  • screen sharing
  • recording
  • moderation / roles / permissions
• You avoid building all the low-level WebRTC complexity yourself
• You can still customize the UX a lot

Strong recommendation: LiveKit-based stack

If you want something modern and flexible:

• Frontend: Next.js + LiveKit React SDK
• Backend: Node.js (NestJS / Express / Fastify)
• Realtime: LiveKit server + webhooks
• Auth: your backend mints room tokens
• Recording: LiveKit Egress
• Moderation:
  • room roles: host / speaker / moderator / attendee
  • server-side participant permissions
  • webhooks for join/leave, track publish/unpublish
  • kick / mute / lock room controls
• Storage: S3 / GCS for recordings
• DB: Postgres
• Queue: Redis + BullMQ for recording jobs / async moderation actions
• Observability: Sentry + OpenTelemetry

This is a very common production architecture.

If you want fastest time-to-market

Use a fully managed video API:

• Agora or Daily
• Pros:
  • fastest to ship
  • screen share and recording are usually straightforward
  • fewer operational concerns
• Cons:
  • more vendor lock-in
  • less control / customization
  • costs can rise with scale

If you want maximum control

Build on:

• WebRTC
• SFU: LiveKit / Janus / mediasoup
• TURN/STUN: coturn
• Recording: server-side composite recording pipeline
• Moderation: custom signaling + permissions + room state logic

This is best only if you have a strong media engineering team.

What I’d choose

For a startup or product team:

Next.js + NestJS + LiveKit + Postgres + Redis + S3

• best balance of speed, control, and production readiness

For a non-media company that needs to ship quickly:

Next.js + Daily or Agora + Postgres

• simplest path

For a large-scale media platform:

Next.js + custom backend + LiveKit/mediasoup + dedicated recording pipeline

• more engineering, more control

Moderation features you should plan for

Make sure the platform supports:

• host / co-host roles
• mute/unmute others
• remove participants
• approve entry / waiting room
• disable screen share for attendees
• chat moderation if you have chat
• recording consent prompts
• audit logs

Important product decision

You should decide whether your “recording” means:

1. cloud recording of the room
2. separate streams per speaker
3. composited recording with layout
4. local browser recording

For most products, you want server-side recording with a cloud storage target.

My short answer

If you’re building this today, I’d use:

Next.js + LiveKit + Node/NestJS + Postgres + Redis + S3 + LiveKit Egress

It covers:

• live video
• screen sharing
• recording
• moderation
• room roles
• scaling reasonably well

If you want, I can also give you:

1. a reference architecture diagram
2. a vendor comparison table (LiveKit vs Agora vs Daily vs Twilio)
3. a MVP stack vs scalable production stack