Key Terms

Session

A logical “room” hosted in Vonage Video Cloud where clients connect, publish, and subscribe. Sessions are created by your backend and identified by a sessionId.
See: Server SDKs (overview) • Inspector

Session ID

The identifier for a specific Vonage Video session ("room") that a client connects to. A single application can have multiple concurrent video sessions.

Token

A signed credential your backend issues to let a client join a specific session, optionally with a role (e.g., publisher). Tokens are short-lived by design.
See: Authentication

Application ID

An identifier that the client SDK uses to reference different settings for your Vonage Video application.

API Key

API Key is the identifier that tells the Vonage platform which account or application is making a request. It is used as your primary public credential to associate all API calls directly with your Vonage account.

API Secret

API Secret is the private credential paired with your API Key to authenticate server-side requests for your Vonage account. You can generate and manage your secrets in the Vonage Dashboard under Settings. For security reasons, secrets cannot be viewed again after creation. To safely rotate your credentials, you can have two active secrets at the same time, allowing you to deploy and test the new one before revoking the old one.

Client

Your app code using a client SDK (Web, iOS, Android, etc.) to connect to a session, publish local media, subscribe to others, and handle events.
See: Web (JavaScript) SDK • Getting Started

Server

Your backend using a Server SDK or REST to create sessions, mint tokens, and run server-side features (archives, broadcasts, moderation, webhooks).
See: Server SDKs (overview)

Connection

The persistent signaling channel (e.g., WebSocket) that delivers session events and coordinates WebRTC setup. Separate from the media connections that carry A/V.

Stream

An A/V source published into a session (for example, camera + microphone) that other clients can subscribe to; each stream has its own lifecycle and events.
See: Web SDK (publishing/subscribing)

Publish

Sending the local media stream from a client into the session; requires a token/role that permits publishing.
See: Web SDK (publish)

Subscribe

Receiving and rendering a remote participant’s stream(s); typically triggered by a streamCreated event.
See: Web SDK (subscribe)

Events

Session- and stream-level notifications (join/leave, new stream, network warnings, etc.) that your client handles to update UI/state.
See: Inspector

Client SDK

Platform libraries for implementing client-side features: connect, publish/subscribe, screen share, signaling.
See:

• Android SDK
• iOS SDK
• Linux SDK
• React Native SDK
• Web (JavaScript) SDK
• Windows SDK

Server SDK

Language-specific libraries that wrap the Video REST API to create sessions, generate tokens, and control features like archiving/broadcast.
See: Server SDKs (overview)

Vonage Video REST API

HTTP endpoints behind the platform; typically used via Server SDKs but available directly when needed.
See: Video REST API

Vonage Video Cloud

Managed infrastructure that hosts sessions, routes media, and delivers signaling/events across clients and servers.
See: Technical Details