LibSourcey

C++ Networking Evolved

LibSourcey is a collection of cross-platform C++20 modules for building high-performance networked and media streaming applications. It combines the async IO of libuv with OpenSSL, FFmpeg, and modern C++ to provide a clean, modular toolkit for servers, clients, and real-time communication. All dependencies are managed via CMake FetchContent - just add LibSourcey to your project and build.

Version 2.0 - Complete modernisation: C++20, OpenSSL 3.x, FFmpeg 6+, llhttp, smart pointers throughout, zero assert() in production code, comprehensive test coverage. See CHANGELOG.md for details.

• Documentation: doc/
• Repository: https://github.com/sourcey/libsourcey
• Licence: LGPL-2.1+

Features

• Event-based IO - Built on libuv for asynchronous, non-blocking IO across all platforms.
• Cross platform - Compiles on Linux, macOS and Windows with any C++20 compiler (GCC 12+, Clang 15+, MSVC 2022+, AppleClang 15+).
• Modular libraries - Include only what you need. Each module is self-contained with automatic dependency resolution via CMake.
• Solid networking - TCP, SSL/TLS, and UDP sockets built on libuv and OpenSSL.
• HTTP stack - Servers, clients, WebSockets, media streaming, file transfers, and authentication. HTTP parsing via llhttp.
• Media encoding - The av module wraps FFmpeg for capture, encoding, recording, streaming and analysis.
• Real-time messaging - Socket.IO client (protocol revision 4) and Symple messaging protocol.
• STUN/TURN - Full RFC 5766 TURN server/client with RFC 5389 STUN for NAT traversal.
• Docker images - Multi-stage Ubuntu 24.04 images available via the included Dockerfile.

Quick start

Requirements

Platform	Compiler
Linux	GCC 12+ or Clang 15+
macOS	AppleClang 15+ (Xcode 15+)
Windows	MSVC 2022 (Visual Studio 17+)

Dependencies: CMake 3.21+, pkg-config (Linux/macOS). The following are fetched automatically via FetchContent if not found on the system:

Dependency	Version
libuv	1.50
llhttp	9.2.1
OpenSSL	3.x
nlohmann/json	3.11.3
zlib	1.3.1

CMake FetchContent

include(FetchContent)
FetchContent_Declare(libsourcey
  GIT_REPOSITORY https://github.com/sourcey/libsourcey.git
  GIT_TAG master
)
FetchContent_MakeAvailable(libsourcey)
target_link_libraries(myapp PRIVATE scy_base scy_net scy_crypto)

Build from source

git clone https://github.com/sourcey/libsourcey.git
cd libsourcey
cmake -B build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DBUILD_TESTS=ON
cmake --build build --parallel $(nproc)
ctest --test-dir build --output-on-failure

find_package

After installing (cmake --install build):

find_package(LibSourcey REQUIRED)
target_link_libraries(myapp PRIVATE scy_base scy_net scy_http)

Examples

HTTP echo server

http::Server srv{ "127.0.0.1", 1337 };
srv.Connection += [](http::ServerConnection::Ptr conn) {
    conn->Payload += [](http::ServerConnection& conn, const MutableBuffer& buffer) {
        conn.send(bufferCast<const char*>(buffer), buffer.size());
        conn.close();
    };
};
srv.start();

Process IO

Process proc{ "ping", "example.com" };
proc.onstdout = [](std::string line) {
    // handle process output
};
proc.onexit = [](std::int64_t status) {
    // handle process exit
};
proc.spawn();

Media streaming

PacketStream stream;

av::EncoderOptions options;
options.oformat = av::Format{"MP4", "mp4",
    { "H.264", "libx264", 640, 480, 25, 48000, 128000, "yuv420p" },
    { "AAC", "aac", 2, 44100, 64000, "fltp" }};

av::DeviceManager devman;
av::Device device;

if (devman.getDefaultCamera(device)) {
    auto video = std::make_shared<av::VideoCapture>(device.id, 640, 480);
    video->getEncoderFormat(options.iformat);
    stream.attachSource(video, true);
}

av::MultiplexPacketEncoder::Ptr encoder(options);
stream.attach(encoder);
stream.attach(socket); // broadcast over network
stream.start();

Regenerating API docs

The API reference in doc/ is generated from source code using Doxygen and Moxygen.

Prerequisites: doxygen and npx (Node.js).

make docs

This runs Doxygen to parse the C++ source into XML, then Moxygen to convert it into markdown files (doc/api-*.md).

Contributors

A massive thanks to everyone who has contributed to making LibSourcey awesome:

• Kam Low (@auscaster) - Primary developer
• Yury Shulbn (@yuryshubin) - iOS build toolchain and platform fixes
• Vinci Xu (@VinciShark) - Windows documentation, testing and updates
• Michael Fig (@michael-fig) - Fixed compiler flags to build without FFmpeg
• Hyunuk Kim (@surinkim) - Fixed std::codecvt unicode character conversion on Windows
• Damian Zelim (@ZelimDamian) - Fixed compiler flags for OS X build
• Norm Ovenseri (@normano) - Added verbose logging output to build system
• Alexey (@deilos) - Fixed cross-platform FFmpeg build script
• Kryton (@Malesio) - Fixed segfaults in samples and tidied up Valgrind warnings

Contributing

Pull Requests are always welcome, so if you fix or make anything better then feel free to float a PR back upstream :)

1. Fork LibSourcey on Github
2. Create your feature branch (git checkout -b my-new-feature)
3. Commit your changes (git commit -am 'Add some feature')
4. Push to the branch (git push origin my-new-feature)
5. Create new Pull Request